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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         22nd November 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
  32 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
  33 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
  34 courtesy of
  35 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
  36 Schubert</a> and
  37 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
  38 McVittie</a>.
  39
  40 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
  41 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
  42 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
  43 you upgrade:</p>
  44
  45 <p><blockquote><pre>
  46 Package: systemd-sysv
  47 Pin: release o=Debian
  48 Pin-Priority: -1
  49 </pre></blockquote><p>
  50
  51 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
  52 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
  53 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
  54 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
  55 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
  56
  57 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
  58 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
  59 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
  60 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
  61 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
  62 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
  63
  64 <p><blockquote><pre>
  65 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core"
  66 </pre></blockquote><p>
  67
  68 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
  69
  70 <p><blockquote><pre>
  71 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
  72 </pre></blockquote><p>
  73
  74 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
  75 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
  76
  77 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
  78 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
  79 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
  80 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
  81 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
  82 Jessie is released.</p>
  83
  84       </div>
  85       <div class="tags">
  86
  87
  88         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
  89
  90
  91       </div>
  92     </div>
  93     <div class="padding"></div>
  94
  95     <div class="entry">
  96       <div class="title">
  97         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
  98       </div>
  99       <div class="date">
 100         10th November 2014
 101       </div>
 102       <div class="body">
 103         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
 104 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
 105 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
 106
 107 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
 108 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
 109 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
 110 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
 111 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
 112 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
 113 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
 114 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
 115 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
 116 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
 117 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
 118 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
 119 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
 120 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
 121 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
 122
 123 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
 124 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
 125 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
 126 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
 127 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
 128 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
 129 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
 130 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
 131 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
 132 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
 133 were fairly easy, and
 134 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
 135 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
 136 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
 137 useful approach.</p>
 138
 139 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
 140 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
 141 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
 142 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
 143 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
 144 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
 145 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
 146 this:</p>
 147
 148 <p><blockquote><pre>
 149 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
 150   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
 151 </pre></blockquote></p>
 152
 153 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
 154 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
 155
 156 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
 157 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
 158 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
 159 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
 160 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
 161 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
 162 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
 163 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
 164 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
 165 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
 166 system.</p>
 167
 168 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
 169 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
 170 SMTorP. :)</p>
 171
 172       </div>
 173       <div class="tags">
 174
 175
 176         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 177
 178
 179       </div>
 180     </div>
 181     <div class="padding"></div>
 182
 183     <div class="entry">
 184       <div class="title">
 185         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
 186       </div>
 187       <div class="date">
 188         22nd October 2014
 189       </div>
 190       <div class="body">
 191         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
 192 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
 193 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
 194 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
 195 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
 196 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
 197 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
 198 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
 199 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
 200 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
 201 lists I recently took over:</p>
 202
 203 <p><blockquote><pre>
 204 % time listadmin xiph
 205 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 206 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 207
 208 real    0m1.709s
 209 user    0m0.232s
 210 sys     0m0.012s
 211 %
 212 </pre></blockquote></p>
 213
 214 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
 215 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
 216 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
 217 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
 218 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
 219 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
 220 program.</p>
 221
 222 <p>If you install
 223 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
 224 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
 225 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
 226
 227 <p><blockquote><pre>
 228 username username@example.org
 229 spamlevel 23
 230 default discard
 231 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
 232
 233 password secret
 234 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
 235 mailman-list@lists.example.com
 236
 237 password hidden
 238 other-list@otherserver.example.org
 239 </pre></blockquote></p>
 240
 241 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
 242 learn the details.</p>
 243
 244 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
 245 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
 246 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
 247 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
 248
 249 <p><blockquote><pre>
 250 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
 251 </pre></blockquote></p>
 252
 253 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
 254 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
 255 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
 256 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
 257 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
 258 email.</p>
 259
 260 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
 261 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
 262 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
 263 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
 264 software.</p>
 265
 266 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 267 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 268 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 269
 270 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
 271 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
 272 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
 273 sure why.</p>
 274
 275       </div>
 276       <div class="tags">
 277
 278
 279         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 280
 281
 282       </div>
 283     </div>
 284     <div class="padding"></div>
 285
 286     <div class="entry">
 287       <div class="title">
 288         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
 289       </div>
 290       <div class="date">
 291         17th October 2014
 292       </div>
 293       <div class="body">
 294         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
 295 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
 296 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
 297 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
 298 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
 299 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
 300 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
 301
 302 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
 303 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
 304 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
 305 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
 306 of this story.)</p>
 307
 308 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
 309 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
 310 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
 311 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
 312 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
 313 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
 314 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
 315 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
 316 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
 317 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
 318
 319 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
 320 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
 321 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
 322 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
 323
 324 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
 325 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
 326
 327 <p><blockquote><pre>
 328 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
 329 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
 330 </pre></blockquote></p>
 331
 332 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
 333 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
 334 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
 335 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
 336 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
 337 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
 338 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
 339 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
 340
 341 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
 342 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
 343
 344 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
 345 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
 346 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
 347 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
 348 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
 349
 350 <p><blockquote><pre>
 351 Task: isenkram-packages
 352 Section: hardware
 353 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 354  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 355  proposed.
 356 Test-new-install: show show
 357 Relevance: 8
 358 Packages: for-current-hardware
 359
 360 Task: isenkram-firmware
 361 Section: hardware
 362 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 363  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 364  packages are proposed.
 365 Test-new-install: mark show
 366 Relevance: 8
 367 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
 368 </pre></blockquote></p>
 369
 370 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
 371 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
 372 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
 373 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
 374 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
 375
 376 <p><blockquote><pre>
 377 #!/bin/sh
 378 #
 379 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
 380 export PATH
 381 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 382 </pre></blockquote></p>
 383
 384 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
 385 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
 386
 387 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
 388 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
 389 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
 390 install.</p>
 391
 392 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
 393 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
 394 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
 395
 396       </div>
 397       <div class="tags">
 398
 399
 400         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
 401
 402
 403       </div>
 404     </div>
 405     <div class="padding"></div>
 406
 407     <div class="entry">
 408       <div class="title">
 409         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
 410       </div>
 411       <div class="date">
 412          4th October 2014
 413       </div>
 414       <div class="body">
 415         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
 416 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
 417 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
 418 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
 419
 420 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
 421
 422 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
 423 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
 424 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
 425
 426       </div>
 427       <div class="tags">
 428
 429
 430         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 431
 432
 433       </div>
 434     </div>
 435     <div class="padding"></div>
 436
 437     <div class="entry">
 438       <div class="title">
 439         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
 440       </div>
 441       <div class="date">
 442          4th October 2014
 443       </div>
 444       <div class="body">
 445         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
 446 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
 447 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
 448 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
 449 Dibb.</p>
 450
 451 <p>I just wrapped up
 452 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
 453 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
 454 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
 455 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
 456 0.17.</p>
 457
 458 <ul>
 459
 460  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
 461  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
 462    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
 463  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
 464  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
 465  <li>Fix include orders</li>
 466  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
 467  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
 468  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
 469    the palette size is the same.</li>
 470  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
 471  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
 472  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
 473  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
 474    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
 475
 476 </ul>
 477
 478 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
 479 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
 480 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
 481
 482       </div>
 483       <div class="tags">
 484
 485
 486         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 487
 488
 489       </div>
 490     </div>
 491     <div class="padding"></div>
 492
 493     <div class="entry">
 494       <div class="title">
 495         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
 496       </div>
 497       <div class="date">
 498         26th September 2014
 499       </div>
 500       <div class="body">
 501         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 502 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
 503 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
 504 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
 505 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
 506 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
 507 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
 508 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
 509 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
 510 future.  The
 511 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
 512 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
 513 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 514 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 515 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 516
 517 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 518 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 519 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 520 or rsync (use
 521 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 522 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 523 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 524 install with some tweaking.</p>
 525
 526 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 527 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 528
 529 <p><blockquote><pre>
 530 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 531 </pre></blockquote></p>
 532
 533 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 534 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 535 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 536 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 537
 538 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 539 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 540 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 541 your need.</p>
 542
 543 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 544 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 545 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 546 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 547 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 548 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 549 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 550 days.</p>
 551
 552 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 553 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 554 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 555 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
 556 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
 557 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
 558 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
 559 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
 560 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
 561
 562 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
 563 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
 564 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
 565
 566       </div>
 567       <div class="tags">
 568
 569
 570         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 571
 572
 573       </div>
 574     </div>
 575     <div class="padding"></div>
 576
 577     <div class="entry">
 578       <div class="title">
 579         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
 580       </div>
 581       <div class="date">
 582         25th September 2014
 583       </div>
 584       <div class="body">
 585         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
 586 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
 587 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
 588 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
 589 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
 590 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
 591 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
 592 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
 593 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
 594 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
 595 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
 596 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
 597 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
 598
 599 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
 600 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
 601 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
 602 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
 603 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
 604 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
 605 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
 606 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
 607 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
 608 list</a>. :)</p>
 609
 610       </div>
 611       <div class="tags">
 612
 613
 614         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 615
 616
 617       </div>
 618     </div>
 619     <div class="padding"></div>
 620
 621     <div class="entry">
 622       <div class="title">
 623         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
 624       </div>
 625       <div class="date">
 626         16th September 2014
 627       </div>
 628       <div class="body">
 629         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
 630 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
 631 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
 632 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
 633 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
 634 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
 635 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
 636 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
 637 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
 638 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
 639 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
 640 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
 641 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
 642 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
 643
 644 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
 645 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
 646 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
 647 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
 648 depend on the small and clever package
 649 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
 650 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
 651 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
 652 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
 653 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
 654 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
 655 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
 656 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
 657 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
 658 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
 659 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
 660
 661 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
 662 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
 663 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
 664 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
 665 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
 666 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
 667 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
 668 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
 669 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
 670 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
 671 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
 672 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
 673 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
 674 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
 675 dialog.</p>
 676
 677 <p><table>
 678
 679 <tr>
 680 <th>Machine/setup</th>
 681 <th>Original tasksel</th>
 682 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
 683 <th>Reduction</th>
 684 </tr>
 685
 686 <tr>
 687 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
 688 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
 689 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
 690 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
 691 </tr>
 692
 693 <tr>
 694 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
 695 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
 696 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
 697 <td>23 min 40%</td>
 698 </tr>
 699
 700 <tr>
 701 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
 702 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
 703 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
 704 <td>11 min 50%</td>
 705 </tr>
 706
 707 <tr>
 708 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
 709 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
 710 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
 711 <td>2 min 33%</td>
 712 </tr>
 713
 714 <tr>
 715 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
 716 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
 717 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
 718 <td>4 min 21%</td>
 719 </tr>
 720
 721 </table></p>
 722
 723 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
 724 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
 725 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
 726 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
 727 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
 728 installed.</p>
 729
 730 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
 731 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
 732 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
 733 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
 734 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
 735 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
 736 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
 737 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
 738 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
 739 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
 740 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
 741 for the entire installation.</p>
 742
 743 <p>I've implemented this in the
 744 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
 745 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
 746 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
 747 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
 748 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
 749
 750 <p><blockquote><pre>
 751 #!/bin/sh
 752 set -e
 753 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 754 info() {
 755     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
 756 }
 757 error() {
 758     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
 759 }
 760 override_install() {
 761     apt-install eatmydata || true
 762     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
 763         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 764             file=/usr/bin/$bin
 765             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
 766             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
 767                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
 768                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
 769                     > /target$file.edu
 770                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
 771                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 772                     --rename --quiet --add $file
 773                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
 774             else
 775                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
 776             fi
 777         done
 778     else
 779         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
 780     fi
 781 }
 782
 783 override_install
 784 </pre></blockquote></p>
 785
 786 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
 787 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
 788
 789 <p><blockquote><pre>
 790 #! /bin/sh -e
 791 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 792 error() {
 793     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
 794 }
 795 remove_install_override() {
 796     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 797         file=/usr/bin/$bin
 798         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
 799             rm /target$file
 800             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 801                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
 802             rm /target$file.edu
 803         else
 804             error "Missing divert for $file."
 805         fi
 806     done
 807     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
 808 }
 809
 810 remove_install_override
 811 </pre></blockquote></p>
 812
 813 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
 814 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
 815 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
 816
 817 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
 818 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
 819 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
 820 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
 821 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
 822 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
 823 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
 824 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
 825 everyone.</p>
 826
 827 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
 828 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
 829 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
 830 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
 831
 832 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
 833 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
 834 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
 835 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
 836 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
 837
 838 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
 839 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
 840 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
 841 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
 842 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
 843
 844       </div>
 845       <div class="tags">
 846
 847
 848         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 849
 850
 851       </div>
 852     </div>
 853     <div class="padding"></div>
 854
 855     <div class="entry">
 856       <div class="title">
 857         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
 858       </div>
 859       <div class="date">
 860         10th September 2014
 861       </div>
 862       <div class="body">
 863         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
 864 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
 865 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
 866 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
 867 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
 868 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
 869 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
 870 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
 871 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
 872 those problems are gone now.</p>
 873
 874 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
 875 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
 876 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
 877 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
 878 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
 879
 880 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
 881 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
 882 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
 883
 884 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
 885 line:</p>
 886
 887 <p><blockquote><pre>
 888 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
 889 </pre></blockquote></p>
 890
 891 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
 892 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
 893 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
 894 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
 895
 896 <p><blockquote><pre>
 897 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
 898 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
 899 %
 900 </pre></blockquote></p>
 901
 902 <p>Now if only
 903 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
 904 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
 905 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
 906 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
 907 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
 908 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
 909 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
 910 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
 911 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
 912
 913       </div>
 914       <div class="tags">
 915
 916
 917         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 918
 919
 920       </div>
 921     </div>
 922     <div class="padding"></div>
 923
 924     <div class="entry">
 925       <div class="title">
 926         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
 927       </div>
 928       <div class="date">
 929         17th June 2014
 930       </div>
 931       <div class="body">
 932         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 933 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
 934 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
 935 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
 936 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
 937
 938 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
 939 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
 940 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
 941 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
 942 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
 943 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
 944 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
 945 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
 946 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
 947 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
 948 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
 949 goals.</p>
 950
 951 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
 952 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
 953 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
 954 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
 955 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
 956 chapters together into one large web page (aka
 957 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
 958 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
 959 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
 960 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
 961 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
 962 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
 963 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
 964 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
 965 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
 966 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
 967 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
 968 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
 969 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
 970 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
 971 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
 972 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
 973 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
 974 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
 975
 976 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
 977 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
 978 track the English original.  For this we use the
 979 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
 980 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
 981 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
 982 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
 983 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
 984 files), which the translations update with the native language
 985 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
 986 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
 987 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
 988 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
 989 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
 990 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
 991 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
 992 of the documentation.</p>
 993
 994 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
 995 recommend using
 996 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
 997 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
 998 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
 999 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
1000 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
1001 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
1002 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
1003 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
1004
1005 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
1006 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
1007 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
1008 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
1009 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
1010 translated images by storing translated versions in
1011 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
1012 package maintainers know more.</p>
1013
1014 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
1015 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
1016 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
1017 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
1018 PDF version</a> or the
1019 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
1020 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
1021 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
1022
1023 <p>To learn more, check out
1024 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
1025 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
1026 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
1027 manual on the wiki</a> and
1028 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
1029 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
1030
1031       </div>
1032       <div class="tags">
1033
1034
1035         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1036
1037
1038       </div>
1039     </div>
1040     <div class="padding"></div>
1041
1042     <div class="entry">
1043       <div class="title">
1044         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
1045       </div>
1046       <div class="date">
1047         23rd April 2014
1048       </div>
1049       <div class="body">
1050         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
1051 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
1052 So I implemented one, using
1053 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
1054 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
1055 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
1056 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
1057 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
1058 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
1059
1060 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
1061 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
1062 packages to install.  The first part is in
1063 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
1064 this:</p>
1065
1066 <p><blockquote><pre>
1067 Task: isenkram
1068 Section: hardware
1069 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1070  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1071  proposed.
1072 Test-new-install: mark show
1073 Relevance: 8
1074 Packages: for-current-hardware
1075 </pre></blockquote></p>
1076
1077 <p>The second part is in
1078 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
1079 this:</p>
1080
1081 <p><blockquote><pre>
1082 #!/bin/sh
1083 #
1084 (
1085     isenkram-lookup
1086     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1087 ) | sort -u
1088 </pre></blockquote></p>
1089
1090 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
1091 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
1092 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
1093 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
1094 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
1095 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
1096
1097 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
1098 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
1099 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
1100 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
1101 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
1102 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
1103 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
1104 the python-apt code (bug
1105 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
1106 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
1107 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
1108 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
1109 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
1110 unstable today.</p>
1111
1112 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
1113 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
1114 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
1115 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
1116 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
1117 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
1118 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
1119 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
1120 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
1121
1122 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
1123 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
1124 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
1125 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
1126 package.  See also
1127 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
1128 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
1129 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
1130 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
1131
1132       </div>
1133       <div class="tags">
1134
1135
1136         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1137
1138
1139       </div>
1140     </div>
1141     <div class="padding"></div>
1142
1143     <div class="entry">
1144       <div class="title">
1145         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
1146       </div>
1147       <div class="date">
1148         15th April 2014
1149       </div>
1150       <div class="body">
1151         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1152 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
1153 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
1154 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
1155 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
1156 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
1157
1158 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
1159 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
1160 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
1161 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
1162 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
1163 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
1164 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
1165
1166 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1167 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
1168 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
1169 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
1170 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
1171 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
1172 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
1173 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
1174 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
1175 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
1176 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
1177 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
1178
1179 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1180 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1181 become root:</p>
1182
1183 <p><pre>
1184 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1185   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1186   u-boot-tools
1187 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1188   freedom-maker
1189 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1190 </pre></p>
1191
1192 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1193 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1194 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
1195 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1196 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1197 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
1198 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1199 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
1200
1201 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1202 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1203 the preseed values:</p>
1204
1205 <p><pre>
1206 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1207 </pre></p>
1208
1209 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1210 it still work.</p>
1211
1212 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1213 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
1214 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
1215 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1216 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
1217 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1218 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
1219
1220 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1221 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1222 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1223 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1224 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1225 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1226
1227       </div>
1228       <div class="tags">
1229
1230
1231         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1232
1233
1234       </div>
1235     </div>
1236     <div class="padding"></div>
1237
1238     <div class="entry">
1239       <div class="title">
1240         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
1241       </div>
1242       <div class="date">
1243          9th April 2014
1244       </div>
1245       <div class="body">
1246         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1247 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
1248 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1249 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1250 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1251 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1252 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1253 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
1254 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1255 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
1256 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
1257 have looked at a system called
1258 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
1259 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
1260
1261 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1262 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1263 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
1264 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1265 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
1266 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1267 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1268 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1269 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
1270 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
1271 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1272 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1273 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
1274
1275 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1276 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
1277 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
1278 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1279 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
1280 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
1281 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1282 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1283 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
1284 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
1285 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1286 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1287 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
1288 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1289 account.</p>
1290
1291 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1292 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
1293 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1294 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1295 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
1296 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
1297 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1298
1299 <p><blockquote><pre>
1300 [s3c]
1301 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1302 backend-login: API-login
1303 backend-password: API-password
1304 fs-passphrase: local-password
1305 </pre></blockquote></p>
1306
1307 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
1308 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1309 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1310 details and password to create it:</p>
1311
1312 <p><blockquote><pre>
1313 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1314 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1315   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1316 Enter backend login:
1317 Enter backend password:
1318 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
1319 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
1320 Enter encryption password:
1321 Confirm encryption password:
1322 Generating random encryption key...
1323 Creating metadata tables...
1324 Dumping metadata...
1325 ..objects..
1326 ..blocks..
1327 ..inodes..
1328 ..inode_blocks..
1329 ..symlink_targets..
1330 ..names..
1331 ..contents..
1332 ..ext_attributes..
1333 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1334 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1335 # </pre></blockquote></p>
1336
1337 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1338
1339 <p><blockquote><pre>
1340 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1341   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1342 Using 4 upload threads.
1343 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1344 Reading metadata...
1345 ..objects..
1346 ..blocks..
1347 ..inodes..
1348 ..inode_blocks..
1349 ..symlink_targets..
1350 ..names..
1351 ..contents..
1352 ..ext_attributes..
1353 Mounting filesystem...
1354 # df -h /s3ql
1355 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1356 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
1357 #
1358 </pre></blockquote></p>
1359
1360 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
1361 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1362 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1363 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1364 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1365 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1366
1367 <p><blockquote><pre>
1368 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1369 #
1370 </pre></blockquote></p>
1371
1372 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1373 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
1374 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
1375 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
1376 file system:</p>
1377
1378 <p><blockquote><pre>
1379 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1380 Using cached metadata.
1381 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1382 Checking DB integrity...
1383 Creating temporary extra indices...
1384 Checking lost+found...
1385 Checking cached objects...
1386 Checking names (refcounts)...
1387 Checking contents (names)...
1388 Checking contents (inodes)...
1389 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1390 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1391 Checking objects (backend)...
1392 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1393 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1394 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1395 Checking objects (sizes)...
1396 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1397 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1398 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1399 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1400 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1401 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1402 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1403 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1404 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1405 Checking directory reachability...
1406 Checking unix conventions...
1407 Checking referential integrity...
1408 Dropping temporary indices...
1409 Backing up old metadata...
1410 Dumping metadata...
1411 ..objects..
1412 ..blocks..
1413 ..inodes..
1414 ..inode_blocks..
1415 ..symlink_targets..
1416 ..names..
1417 ..contents..
1418 ..ext_attributes..
1419 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1420 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1421 #
1422 </pre></blockquote></p>
1423
1424 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1425 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1426 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1427 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1428 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1429 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1430 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1431 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1432 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1433 working set.</p>
1434
1435 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1436 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1437 busy:</p>
1438
1439 <p><blockquote><pre>
1440 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1441   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1442 Using 8 upload threads.
1443 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1444 #
1445 </pre></blockquote></p>
1446
1447 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1448 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
1449 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1450 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1451 s3qlctrl:
1452
1453 <p><blockquote><pre>
1454 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1455 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1456 #
1457 </pre></blockquote></p>
1458
1459 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1460 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1461 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1462 a report:</p>
1463
1464 <p><blockquote><pre>
1465 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1466 Directory entries:    9141
1467 Inodes:               9143
1468 Data blocks:          8851
1469 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
1470 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1471 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1472 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1473 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1474 #
1475 </pre></blockquote></p>
1476
1477 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1478 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1479 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
1480 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
1481 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
1482 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
1483 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
1484 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
1485 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1486 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1487 best.</p>
1488
1489 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1490 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
1491 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1492 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
1493 poster is titled
1494 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
1495 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1496 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
1497 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1498 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
1499
1500 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1501 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1502 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1503 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
1504 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
1505 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
1506 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
1507 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
1508
1509 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1510 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1511 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
1512 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
1513 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1514 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1515 only read from it.</p>
1516
1517 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1518 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1519 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1520
1521       </div>
1522       <div class="tags">
1523
1524
1525         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1526
1527
1528       </div>
1529     </div>
1530     <div class="padding"></div>
1531
1532     <div class="entry">
1533       <div class="title">
1534         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
1535       </div>
1536       <div class="date">
1537         14th March 2014
1538       </div>
1539       <div class="body">
1540         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1541 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1542 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1543 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1544 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
1545 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1546 release (0.2).</p>
1547
1548 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1549 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
1550 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1551 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1552 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1553 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1554 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1555 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1556 and build using
1557 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
1558 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1559
1560 <pre>
1561 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1562   freedom-maker
1563 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1564   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1565   u-boot-tools
1566 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1567 </pre>
1568
1569 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1570 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1571 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1572 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1573 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1574 kpartx call.</p>
1575
1576 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1577 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1578 the preseed values:</p>
1579
1580 <pre>
1581 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1582 </pre>
1583
1584 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1585 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1586 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1587 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1588 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1589 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1590
1591 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1592 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1593 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1594 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1595 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1596 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1597
1598       </div>
1599       <div class="tags">
1600
1601
1602         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1603
1604
1605       </div>
1606     </div>
1607     <div class="padding"></div>
1608
1609     <div class="entry">
1610       <div class="title">
1611         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
1612       </div>
1613       <div class="date">
1614         22nd February 2014
1615       </div>
1616       <div class="body">
1617         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1618 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1619 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
1620 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
1621 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1622 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1623 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1624 proper home since then.</p>
1625
1626 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1627 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1628 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
1629 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
1630 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
1631
1632 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1633 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1634 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
1635 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
1636 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1637 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
1638 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
1639 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
1640 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
1641
1642       </div>
1643       <div class="tags">
1644
1645
1646         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1647
1648
1649       </div>
1650     </div>
1651     <div class="padding"></div>
1652
1653     <div class="entry">
1654       <div class="title">
1655         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
1656       </div>
1657       <div class="date">
1658          3rd February 2014
1659       </div>
1660       <div class="body">
1661         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1662 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1663 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
1664 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
1665 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1666 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
1667 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1668 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
1669 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
1670
1671 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1672 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
1673 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
1674 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
1675 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1676 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
1677
1678 <p><blockquote><pre>
1679 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1680 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
1681 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
1682 dhclient /dev/eth0
1683 </pre></blockquote></p>
1684
1685 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1686 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1687 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
1688
1689 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1690 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1691 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1692 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
1693 side.</p>
1694
1695 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1696 stuff:</p>
1697
1698 <p><blockquote><pre>
1699 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1700 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1701 EOF
1702 apt-get update
1703 apt-get dist-upgrade
1704 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1705     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1706 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1707 </pre></blockquote></p>
1708
1709 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1710 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
1711 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1712 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1713 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1714 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1715 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
1716 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1717 ssh instead.
1718
1719 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1720 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1721 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1722 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
1723 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1724 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
1725
1726 <p><blockquote><pre>
1727 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1728 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1729 EOF
1730 </pre></blockquote></p>
1731
1732 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1733 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
1734 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
1735 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
1736
1737 <p><blockquote><pre>
1738 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
1739 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
1740 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
1741 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
1742 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
1743 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
1744 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
1745 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
1746 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
1747 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
1748 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
1749 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
1750 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
1751 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
1752 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
1753 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
1754 #
1755 </pre></blockquote></p>
1756
1757 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
1758 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
1759 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
1760 command line stuff.<p>
1761
1762       </div>
1763       <div class="tags">
1764
1765
1766         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1767
1768
1769       </div>
1770     </div>
1771     <div class="padding"></div>
1772
1773     <div class="entry">
1774       <div class="title">
1775         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
1776       </div>
1777       <div class="date">
1778         14th January 2014
1779       </div>
1780       <div class="body">
1781         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
1782 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
1783 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
1784 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
1785 the source.  The company behind it provide
1786 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
1787 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
1788 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
1789 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
1790 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
1791 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
1792 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
1793 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
1794 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
1795 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
1796 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
1797 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
1798 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
1799 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
1800 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
1801 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
1802 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
1803 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
1804 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
1805
1806 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
1807
1808 <ul>
1809
1810   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
1811   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
1812   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
1813
1814 </ul>
1815
1816 <p>You can
1817 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1818 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1819 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1820 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1821 include a test suite check.</p>
1822
1823       </div>
1824       <div class="tags">
1825
1826
1827         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1828
1829
1830       </div>
1831     </div>
1832     <div class="padding"></div>
1833
1834     <div class="entry">
1835       <div class="title">
1836         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
1837       </div>
1838       <div class="date">
1839         24th November 2013
1840       </div>
1841       <div class="body">
1842         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1843 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1844 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1845 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1846 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
1847 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1848 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
1849 is working on.  I checked the
1850 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
1851 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
1852 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
1853 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1854 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1855 These are the release notes:</p>
1856
1857 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
1858
1859 <ul>
1860
1861   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1862    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1863    up.</li>
1864
1865   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
1866
1867   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1868    Matthias Klose.</li>
1869
1870   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1871    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
1872
1873   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1874    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
1875    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
1876
1877 </ul>
1878
1879 <p>You can
1880 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1881 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1882 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1883 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1884 include a testsuite check.</p>
1885
1886       </div>
1887       <div class="tags">
1888
1889
1890         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1891
1892
1893       </div>
1894     </div>
1895     <div class="padding"></div>
1896
1897     <div class="entry">
1898       <div class="title">
1899         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
1900       </div>
1901       <div class="date">
1902          2nd November 2013
1903       </div>
1904       <div class="body">
1905         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1906 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
1907 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1908 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1909 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
1910
1911 <p><pre>
1912 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1913 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
1914 # Provides:          rsyslog
1915 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
1916 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
1917 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
1918 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
1919 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
1920 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1921 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1922 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1923 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
1924 ### END INIT INFO
1925 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
1926 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1927 </pre></p>
1928
1929 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1930 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
1931 info/comments.</p>
1932
1933 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
1934 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1935
1936 <p><pre>
1937 #!/bin/sh
1938
1939 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1940 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
1941 # and status_of_proc is working.
1942 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1943
1944 #
1945 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1946
1947 #
1948 do_start()
1949 {
1950         # Return
1951         #   0 if daemon has been started
1952         #   1 if daemon was already running
1953         #   2 if daemon could not be started
1954         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
1955                 || return 1
1956         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1957                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
1958                 || return 2
1959         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1960         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1961         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1962 }
1963
1964 #
1965 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1966 #
1967 do_stop()
1968 {
1969         # Return
1970         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
1971         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
1972         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
1973         #   other if a failure occurred
1974         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1975         RETVAL="$?"
1976         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
1977         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1978         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1979         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1980         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1981         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
1982         # sleep for some time.
1983         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
1984         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
1985         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1986         rm -f $PIDFILE
1987         return "$RETVAL"
1988 }
1989
1990 #
1991 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1992 #
1993 do_reload() {
1994         #
1995         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
1996         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
1997         # then implement that here.
1998         #
1999         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2000         return 0
2001 }
2002
2003 SCRIPTNAME=$1
2004 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
2005 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
2006 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
2007     script="$1"
2008     shift
2009     . $script
2010 else
2011     exit 0
2012 fi
2013
2014 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
2015 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
2016
2017 # Exit if the package is not installed
2018 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
2019
2020 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
2021 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
2022
2023 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
2024 . /lib/init/vars.sh
2025
2026 case "$1" in
2027   start)
2028         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
2029         do_start
2030         case "$?" in
2031                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2032                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2033         esac
2034         ;;
2035   stop)
2036         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
2037         do_stop
2038         case "$?" in
2039                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2040                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2041         esac
2042         ;;
2043   status)
2044         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
2045         ;;
2046   #reload|force-reload)
2047         #
2048         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
2049         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
2050         #
2051         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
2052         #do_reload
2053         #log_end_msg $?
2054         #;;
2055   restart|force-reload)
2056         #
2057         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
2058         # 'force-reload' alias
2059         #
2060         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
2061         do_stop
2062         case "$?" in
2063           0|1)
2064                 do_start
2065                 case "$?" in
2066                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
2067                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
2068                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
2069                 esac
2070                 ;;
2071           *)
2072                 # Failed to stop
2073                 log_end_msg 1
2074                 ;;
2075         esac
2076         ;;
2077   *)
2078         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
2079         exit 3
2080         ;;
2081 esac
2082
2083 :
2084 </pre></p>
2085
2086 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
2087 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
2088 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
2089 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
2090
2091 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
2092 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
2093 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
2094 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
2095 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
2096
2097       </div>
2098       <div class="tags">
2099
2100
2101         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2102
2103
2104       </div>
2105     </div>
2106     <div class="padding"></div>
2107
2108     <div class="entry">
2109       <div class="title">
2110         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
2111       </div>
2112       <div class="date">
2113          1st November 2013
2114       </div>
2115       <div class="body">
2116         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
2117 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
2118 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
2119 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
2120 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
2121 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
2122 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
2123 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
2124 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
2125 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
2126 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
2127 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
2128
2129 <p>The source is now available from
2130 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
2131
2132       </div>
2133       <div class="tags">
2134
2135
2136         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2137
2138
2139       </div>
2140     </div>
2141     <div class="padding"></div>
2142
2143     <div class="entry">
2144       <div class="title">
2145         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
2146       </div>
2147       <div class="date">
2148         27th October 2013
2149       </div>
2150       <div class="body">
2151         <p>The
2152 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
2153 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
2154 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
2155 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
2156 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
2157 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
2158 of a plan to simplify the build system for
2159 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
2160 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
2161 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
2162 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
2163 Raspberry Pi.</p>
2164
2165 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
2166 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
2167 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
2168 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
2169 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
2170 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
2171 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
2172 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
2173 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
2174 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
2175 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
2176 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
2177 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
2178 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
2179 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
2180 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
2181 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
2182 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
2183 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
2184 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
2185 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
2186 available from
2187 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
2188 upstream project page</a>.</p>
2189
2190 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
2191 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
2192 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
2193 list:</p>
2194
2195 <p><pre>
2196 #!/bin/sh
2197 set -e # Exit on first error
2198 rootdir="$1"
2199 cd "$rootdir"
2200 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
2201 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
2202 EOF
2203 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
2204 # install a kernel somewhere too.
2205 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
2206     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2207 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2208 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
2209 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
2210 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
2211 </pre></p>
2212
2213 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
2214 to build the image:</p>
2215
2216 <pre>
2217 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
2218     --variant minbase \
2219     --arch armel \
2220     --distribution jessie \
2221     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
2222     --image test.img \
2223     --size 600M \
2224     --bootsize 64M \
2225     --boottype vfat \
2226     --log-level debug \
2227     --verbose \
2228     --no-kernel \
2229     --no-extlinux \
2230     --root-password raspberry \
2231     --hostname raspberrypi \
2232     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
2233     --customize `pwd`/customize \
2234     --package netbase \
2235     --package git-core \
2236     --package binutils \
2237     --package ca-certificates \
2238     --package wget \
2239     --package kmod
2240 </pre></p>
2241
2242 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
2243 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
2244 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
2245 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
2246 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
2247 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
2248 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
2249
2250 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
2251 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
2252 build dependency list.</p>
2253
2254 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
2255 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
2256 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
2257 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
2258
2259       </div>
2260       <div class="tags">
2261
2262
2263         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
2264
2265
2266       </div>
2267     </div>
2268     <div class="padding"></div>
2269
2270     <div class="entry">
2271       <div class="title">
2272         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
2273       </div>
2274       <div class="date">
2275         15th October 2013
2276       </div>
2277       <div class="body">
2278         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
2279 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2280 these. :)</p>
2281
2282 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
2283 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
2284 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2285 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
2286 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
2287 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
2288 hope you will to. :)</p>
2289
2290 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2291 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
2292 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
2293 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
2294 donated.  Are you next?</p>
2295
2296 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2297 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2298 statement under the heading
2299 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
2300 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2301 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
2302 too.</p>
2303
2304       </div>
2305       <div class="tags">
2306
2307
2308         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2309
2310
2311       </div>
2312     </div>
2313     <div class="padding"></div>
2314
2315     <div class="entry">
2316       <div class="title">
2317         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
2318       </div>
2319       <div class="date">
2320         27th September 2013
2321       </div>
2322       <div class="body">
2323         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2324 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2325 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2326 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2327
2328 <ul>
2329
2330 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2331 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2332
2333 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2334 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2335
2336 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2337 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2338 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2339 (Youtube)</li>
2340
2341 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2342 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2343
2344 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2345 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2346
2347 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2348 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2349 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2350
2351 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2352 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2353 (Youtube)</li>
2354
2355 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2356 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2357
2358 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2359 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2360
2361 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2362 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2363 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2364
2365 </ul>
2366
2367 <p>A larger list is available from
2368 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2369 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2370
2371 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2372 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2373 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2374 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2375 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2376 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2377 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
2378 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
2379 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
2380 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2381 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2382
2383       </div>
2384       <div class="tags">
2385
2386
2387         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2388
2389
2390       </div>
2391     </div>
2392     <div class="padding"></div>
2393
2394     <div class="entry">
2395       <div class="title">
2396         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
2397       </div>
2398       <div class="date">
2399         10th September 2013
2400       </div>
2401       <div class="body">
2402         <p>I was introduced to the
2403 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2404 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2405 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2406 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2407 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2408 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2409 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2410 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2411
2412 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2413 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2414 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2415 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2416 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2417
2418 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2419 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2420 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2421 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2422 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2423 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2424 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2425 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2426 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2427 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2428 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2429 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2430 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2431 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2432 missing in Debian).</p>
2433
2434 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2435 scripts
2436 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2437 and a administrative web interface
2438 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2439 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2440 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2441 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2442 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2443 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2444 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2445 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2446 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2447 this is really working yet, see
2448 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2449 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2450 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2451 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2452 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2453 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2454 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2455
2456 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2457 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2458 at.</p>
2459
2460 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2461
2462 <ol>
2463
2464 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2465 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2466 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2467 to the Debian installer:<p>
2468 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2469
2470 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2471 install on.</li>
2472
2473 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2474 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2475
2476 </ol>
2477
2478 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2479
2480 <ol>
2481
2482 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2483 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2484 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2485 <pre>
2486 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2487 </pre></li>
2488 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2489 <pre>
2490 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2491    apt-key add -
2492 apt-get update
2493 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2494 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2495 </pre></li>
2496 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2497
2498 </ol>
2499
2500 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2501 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2502 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2503 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2504 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2505
2506 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2507 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2508 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2509 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2510
2511 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2512 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2513 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2514 irc.debian.org and the
2515 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2516 mailing list</a>.</p>
2517
2518 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2519 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2520 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2521 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2522 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2523 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2524
2525       </div>
2526       <div class="tags">
2527
2528
2529         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2530
2531
2532       </div>
2533     </div>
2534     <div class="padding"></div>
2535
2536     <div class="entry">
2537       <div class="title">
2538         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
2539       </div>
2540       <div class="date">
2541         18th August 2013
2542       </div>
2543       <div class="body">
2544         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2545 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2546 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2547 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2548 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2549 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2550 currently on the disk.</p>
2551
2552 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2553 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
2554 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2555 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2556 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2557 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2558 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2559 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2560 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2561 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2562 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2563 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2564 the broken disks.</p>
2565
2566       </div>
2567       <div class="tags">
2568
2569
2570         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2571
2572
2573       </div>
2574     </div>
2575     <div class="padding"></div>
2576
2577     <div class="entry">
2578       <div class="title">
2579         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
2580       </div>
2581       <div class="date">
2582         17th July 2013
2583       </div>
2584       <div class="body">
2585         <p>Today I switched to
2586 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2587 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2588 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2589 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
2590 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2591 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2592 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2593 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2594 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2595 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2596 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2597 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2598 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2599 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2600 station from now on.</p>
2601
2602 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2603 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2604 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2605 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2606 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2607 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2608 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2609 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2610 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2611 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2612 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2613 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2614
2615 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2616 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2617 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2618 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2619 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2620 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2621 parameters are tuned:</p>
2622
2623 <ul>
2624
2625 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2626     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2627
2628 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2629     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2630     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2631
2632 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2633     systems.</li>
2634
2635 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2636     /etc/fstab.</li>
2637
2638 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2639
2640 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2641     cron.daily).</li>
2642
2643 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2644     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2645
2646 </ul>
2647
2648 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2649 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2650 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2651 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2652 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2653 from getting the data on the disk (see
2654 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2655 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2656 right thing to do.</p>
2657
2658 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2659 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2660 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2661
2662 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2663 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2664 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2665 instead of during my work.</p>
2666
2667 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2668 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2669
2670 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2671 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2672 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2673
2674 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2675 there.</p>
2676
2677 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2678 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2679 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2680 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2681 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2682 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2683 back.</p>
2684
2685       </div>
2686       <div class="tags">
2687
2688
2689         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2690
2691
2692       </div>
2693     </div>
2694     <div class="padding"></div>
2695
2696     <div class="entry">
2697       <div class="title">
2698         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
2699       </div>
2700       <div class="date">
2701         10th July 2013
2702       </div>
2703       <div class="body">
2704         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2705 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2706 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2707 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2708 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2709 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2710 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2711 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2712
2713 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2714 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2715 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2716 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2717 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2718 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2719 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2720 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2721 lock up when I download a new
2722 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2723 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2724 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2725
2726 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2727 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2728 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2729 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2730 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2731 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2732
2733 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2734 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
2735 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2736 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2737 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2738 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2739
2740 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2741 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
2742 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2743 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2744 exist).</p>
2745
2746       </div>
2747       <div class="tags">
2748
2749
2750         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2751
2752
2753       </div>
2754     </div>
2755     <div class="padding"></div>
2756
2757     <div class="entry">
2758       <div class="title">
2759         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
2760       </div>
2761       <div class="date">
2762          9th July 2013
2763       </div>
2764       <div class="body">
2765         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
2766 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2767 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
2768 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
2769 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2770 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
2771 Bitraf</a>.</p>
2772
2773 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
2774 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
2775 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
2776 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
2777 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
2778
2779       </div>
2780       <div class="tags">
2781
2782
2783         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
2784
2785
2786       </div>
2787     </div>
2788     <div class="padding"></div>
2789
2790     <div class="entry">
2791       <div class="title">
2792         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
2793       </div>
2794       <div class="date">
2795          5th July 2013
2796       </div>
2797       <div class="body">
2798         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2799 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
2800 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
2801 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2802 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
2803 ended up picking a
2804 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
2805 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2806 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
2807 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
2808 on that below.</p>
2809
2810 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2811 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2812 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2813 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2814 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2815 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2816 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2817 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
2818 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
2819
2820 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2821 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2822 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2823 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
2824 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2825 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2826 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
2827
2828 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
2829 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
2830
2831 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
2832 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2833 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2834 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2835 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2836 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
2837 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
2838 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2839 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
2840 kernel developers as
2841 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
2842 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
2843 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2844 Lenovo forums, both for
2845 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
2846 2012-11-10</a> and for
2847 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
2848 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
2849 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2850 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2851 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2852 There is even a
2853 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
2854 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2855 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
2856
2857 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2858 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
2859 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2860 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2861 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
2862 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2863 fixed. :)</p>
2864
2865       </div>
2866       <div class="tags">
2867
2868
2869         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2870
2871
2872       </div>
2873     </div>
2874     <div class="padding"></div>
2875
2876     <div class="entry">
2877       <div class="title">
2878         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
2879       </div>
2880       <div class="date">
2881          4th July 2013
2882       </div>
2883       <div class="body">
2884         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2885 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2886 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
2887 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
2888 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
2889 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
2890 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2891 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2892 with an expencive door stop.</p>
2893
2894 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2895 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2896 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2897 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2898 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2899 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2900 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
2901
2902 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2903 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2904 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
2905 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2906 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2907 new laptop now. :)</p>
2908
2909 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
2910
2911       </div>
2912       <div class="tags">
2913
2914
2915         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2916
2917
2918       </div>
2919     </div>
2920     <div class="padding"></div>
2921
2922     <div class="entry">
2923       <div class="title">
2924         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
2925       </div>
2926       <div class="date">
2927         25th June 2013
2928       </div>
2929       <div class="body">
2930         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
2931 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
2932 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
2933 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
2934 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
2935 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
2936 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
2937 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
2938 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
2939 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
2940 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
2941
2942 <p><pre>
2943 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2944 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
2945 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
2946 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
2947 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
2948 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
2949 firmware-ipw2x00
2950 firmware-ipw2x00
2951 Preconfiguring packages ...
2952 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
2953 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
2954 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
2955 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
2956 #
2957 </pre></p>
2958
2959 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
2960 printed instead:</p>
2961
2962 <p><pre>
2963 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2964 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
2965 #
2966 </pre></p>
2967
2968 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
2969 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
2970
2971 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
2972 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
2973 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
2974 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
2975 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
2976 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
2977 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
2978 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
2979 machine.</p>
2980
2981 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
2982 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
2983 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
2984 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
2985 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
2986 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
2987
2988       </div>
2989       <div class="tags">
2990
2991
2992         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2993
2994
2995       </div>
2996     </div>
2997     <div class="padding"></div>
2998
2999     <div class="entry">
3000       <div class="title">
3001         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
3002       </div>
3003       <div class="date">
3004         11th June 2013
3005       </div>
3006       <div class="body">
3007         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
3008 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
3009 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
3010 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
3011 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
3012 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
3013 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
3014 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
3015 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
3016 i915 driver used by the
3017 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3018 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
3019
3020 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
3021 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
3022 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
3023 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
3024 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
3025
3026 <pre>
3027 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
3028 update-initramfs -u -k all
3029 </pre>
3030
3031 <p>Since March 2012 there is
3032 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
3033 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
3034 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
3035 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
3036 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
3037 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
3038 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
3039 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
3040 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
3041 number.</p>
3042
3043 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
3044 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
3045
3046 <p><pre>
3047 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
3048     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
3049     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
3050  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
3051  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
3052     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
3053  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
3054     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
3055  Latency: 0
3056  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
3057  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
3058  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
3059  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
3060  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
3061  Capabilities: <access denied>
3062  Kernel driver in use: i915
3063 </pre></p>
3064
3065 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
3066
3067 <p><pre>
3068 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
3069        ...
3070         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
3071         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3072        ...
3073 }
3074 </pre></p>
3075
3076 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3077 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3078 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3079 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3080 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3081 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3082 yet shown up in
3083 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3084 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3085 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3086 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3087 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3088 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3089
3090 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3091 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3092 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3093 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3094 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3095 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3096 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3097 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3098 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3099 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3100 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3101 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3102
3103 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3104 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
3105 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
3106 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
3107 backlight.</p>
3108
3109       </div>
3110       <div class="tags">
3111
3112
3113         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3114
3115
3116       </div>
3117     </div>
3118     <div class="padding"></div>
3119
3120     <div class="entry">
3121       <div class="title">
3122         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
3123       </div>
3124       <div class="date">
3125         27th May 2013
3126       </div>
3127       <div class="body">
3128         <p>Two days ago, I asked
3129 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
3130 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
3131 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
3132 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
3133 and Windows 8.</p>
3134
3135 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
3136 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
3137 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
3138 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
3139 enough to tell.</p>
3140
3141 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
3142 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
3143 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
3144 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
3145 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
3146 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
3147 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
3148 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
3149 to follow.</p>
3150
3151 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
3152 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
3153 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
3154 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
3155 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
3156 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
3157 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
3158 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
3159
3160 <p>I've updated the
3161 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
3162 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
3163 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
3164 machine.</p>
3165
3166 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
3167 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
3168
3169       </div>
3170       <div class="tags">
3171
3172
3173         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3174
3175
3176       </div>
3177     </div>
3178     <div class="padding"></div>
3179
3180     <div class="entry">
3181       <div class="title">
3182         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
3183       </div>
3184       <div class="date">
3185         25th May 2013
3186       </div>
3187       <div class="body">
3188         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
3189 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
3190 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
3191 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
3192 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
3193 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
3194
3195 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
3196 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
3197 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
3198 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
3199 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
3200 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
3201 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
3202 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
3203 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
3204 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
3205
3206 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
3207 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3208 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
3209 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
3210 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
3211 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
3212
3213 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
3214 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
3215 on new Laptops?</p>
3216
3217       </div>
3218       <div class="tags">
3219
3220
3221         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3222
3223
3224       </div>
3225     </div>
3226     <div class="padding"></div>
3227
3228     <div class="entry">
3229       <div class="title">
3230         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
3231       </div>
3232       <div class="date">
3233         17th May 2013
3234       </div>
3235       <div class="body">
3236         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
3237 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
3238 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
3239 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
3240 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
3241 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
3242 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
3243 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
3244 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
3245 donate some money</a>.
3246
3247 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
3248 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
3249 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
3250 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
3251 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
3252
3253 <p>The script,
3254 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
3255 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
3256 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
3257 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
3258
3259 <ol>
3260
3261 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
3262 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
3263 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
3264     our configuration.</li>
3265 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
3266     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
3267     according to the profile specified in the config above,
3268     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
3269 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
3270     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
3271 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
3272
3273 </ol>
3274
3275 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
3276 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
3277 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
3278 the needed packages.</p>
3279
3280 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
3281 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
3282 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
3283 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
3284 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
3285 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
3286
3287 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
3288 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
3289 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
3290
3291 <p><pre>
3292 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
3293 DESKTOP="lxde"
3294 </pre></p>
3295
3296 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
3297 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
3298 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
3299 boot.</p>
3300
3301       </div>
3302       <div class="tags">
3303
3304
3305         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3306
3307
3308       </div>
3309     </div>
3310     <div class="padding"></div>
3311
3312     <div class="entry">
3313       <div class="title">
3314         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
3315       </div>
3316       <div class="date">
3317         11th May 2013
3318       </div>
3319       <div class="body">
3320         <P>In January,
3321 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
3322 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
3323 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
3324 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
3325 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
3326 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
3327 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
3328 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
3329 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
3330 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
3331 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
3332 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
3333
3334 <p><table>
3335 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
3336 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
3337 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
3338 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
3339 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
3340 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
3341 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
3342 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
3343 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
3344 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
3345 </table></p>
3346
3347 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
3348 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
3349 available in experimental.</p>
3350
3351 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
3352 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
3353 for LEGO designers.</p>
3354
3355       </div>
3356       <div class="tags">
3357
3358
3359         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
3360
3361
3362       </div>
3363     </div>
3364     <div class="padding"></div>
3365
3366     <div class="entry">
3367       <div class="title">
3368         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
3369       </div>
3370       <div class="date">
3371          5th May 2013
3372       </div>
3373       <div class="body">
3374         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
3375 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
3376 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
3377 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
3378 soon.</p>
3379
3380 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
3381 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
3382 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
3383 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
3384 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
3385 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
3386 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
3387 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
3388 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
3389 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
3390 Edu.</a>
3391
3392 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
3393 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
3394 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
3395 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
3396 follow.<p>
3397
3398       </div>
3399       <div class="tags">
3400
3401
3402         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3403
3404
3405       </div>
3406     </div>
3407     <div class="padding"></div>
3408
3409     <div class="entry">
3410       <div class="title">
3411         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
3412       </div>
3413       <div class="date">
3414          3rd April 2013
3415       </div>
3416       <div class="body">
3417         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3418 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3419 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3420 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3421
3422 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3423 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3424 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3425 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3426 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3427 BTS. :)</p>
3428
3429       </div>
3430       <div class="tags">
3431
3432
3433         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3434
3435
3436       </div>
3437     </div>
3438     <div class="padding"></div>
3439
3440     <div class="entry">
3441       <div class="title">
3442         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
3443       </div>
3444       <div class="date">
3445          2nd February 2013
3446       </div>
3447       <div class="body">
3448         <p>My
3449 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3450 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3451 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3452 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3453 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3454 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3455 version too.</p>
3456
3457 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3458 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3459 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3460 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3461 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3462 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3463 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3464 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3465
3466 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3467 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3468 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3469 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3470 it. :)</p>
3471
3472 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3473 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3474 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3475
3476       </div>
3477       <div class="tags">
3478
3479
3480         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3481
3482
3483       </div>
3484     </div>
3485     <div class="padding"></div>
3486
3487     <div class="entry">
3488       <div class="title">
3489         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3490       </div>
3491       <div class="date">
3492         22nd January 2013
3493       </div>
3494       <div class="body">
3495         <p>Yesterday, I
3496 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3497 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3498 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3499 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3500 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3501 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3502 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3503 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3504 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3505 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3506 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3507 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3508 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3509
3510 <pre>
3511 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3512 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3513 </pre>
3514
3515 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3516 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3517 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3518 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3519
3520 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3521 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3522 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3523 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3524 word.</p>
3525
3526 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3527 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3528 process.</p>
3529
3530 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3531 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3532
3533       </div>
3534       <div class="tags">
3535
3536
3537         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3538
3539
3540       </div>
3541     </div>
3542     <div class="padding"></div>
3543
3544     <div class="entry">
3545       <div class="title">
3546         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
3547       </div>
3548       <div class="date">
3549         21st January 2013
3550       </div>
3551       <div class="body">
3552         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3553 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3554 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3555 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
3556 it, fetch the
3557 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
3558 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
3559 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
3560 autostart script.</p>
3561
3562 <p>The design is simple:</p>
3563
3564 <ul>
3565
3566 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3567 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3568
3569 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3570 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3571 initially did.</li>
3572
3573 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3574 the APT database, a database
3575 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3576 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3577
3578 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3579 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3580 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3581 package or packages.</li>
3582
3583 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3584 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3585
3586 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3587 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3588
3589 </ul>
3590
3591 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3592 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3593 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3594 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3595
3596 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3597 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3598 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3599 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3600 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3601
3602 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3603 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3604 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3605 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3606 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3607 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3608 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3609 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3610
3611 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3612 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3613 '<tt>svn checkout
3614 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3615 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3616 devscripts package.</p>
3617
3618 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3619 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3620 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3621 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3622 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3623
3624       </div>
3625       <div class="tags">
3626
3627
3628         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3629
3630
3631       </div>
3632     </div>
3633     <div class="padding"></div>
3634
3635     <div class="entry">
3636       <div class="title">
3637         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
3638       </div>
3639       <div class="date">
3640         19th January 2013
3641       </div>
3642       <div class="body">
3643         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
3644 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3645 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
3646 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
3647 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
3648 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
3649 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3650 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3651 not a durable solution.
3652
3653 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
3654 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
3655
3656 <ul>
3657
3658 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3659   than A4).</li>
3660 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
3661 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
3662 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
3663 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
3664 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
3665 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
3666 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
3667 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
3668 size).</li>
3669 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3670   X.org packages.</li>
3671 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3672   the time).
3673
3674 </ul>
3675
3676 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3677 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3678 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3679 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
3680 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3681 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3682 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3683 still be useful.</p>
3684
3685 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3686 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
3687 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
3688 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3689 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
3690 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
3691
3692       </div>
3693       <div class="tags">
3694
3695
3696         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3697
3698
3699       </div>
3700     </div>
3701     <div class="padding"></div>
3702
3703     <div class="entry">
3704       <div class="title">
3705         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
3706       </div>
3707       <div class="date">
3708         18th January 2013
3709       </div>
3710       <div class="body">
3711         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3712 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
3713 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
3714 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3715 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3716 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3717 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
3718
3719 <pre>
3720 #!/usr/bin/python
3721 import sys
3722 import apt
3723 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3724     cache = apt.Cache()
3725     cache.open(None)
3726     thepkgs = []
3727     for pkg in cache:
3728         version = pkg.candidate
3729         if version is None:
3730             version = pkg.installed
3731         if version is None:
3732             continue
3733         record = version.record
3734         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
3735             continue
3736         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
3737         for t in mime_types:
3738             t = t.rstrip().strip()
3739             if t == mimetype:
3740                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
3741     return thepkgs
3742 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
3743 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
3744     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
3745 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
3746 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3747     print "  %s" %pkg
3748 </pre>
3749
3750 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
3751
3752 <pre>
3753 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
3754 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
3755   gecko-mediaplayer
3756 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
3757 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
3758   browser-plugin-gnash
3759 %
3760 </pre>
3761
3762 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
3763 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
3764 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
3765 anyone working on adding it?</p>
3766
3767 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
3768 request for icweasel support for this feature is
3769 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
3770 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
3771 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
3772 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
3773
3774       </div>
3775       <div class="tags">
3776
3777
3778         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3779
3780
3781       </div>
3782     </div>
3783     <div class="padding"></div>
3784
3785     <div class="entry">
3786       <div class="title">
3787         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
3788       </div>
3789       <div class="date">
3790         16th January 2013
3791       </div>
3792       <div class="body">
3793         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
3794 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
3795 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
3796 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
3797 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
3798 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
3799 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
3800 downloaded by the browser.</p>
3801
3802 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
3803 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
3804 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
3805 can be found on the
3806 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
3807 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
3808 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
3809 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
3810 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
3811
3812 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
3813
3814 <pre>
3815   count MIME type
3816   ----- -----------------------
3817      32 text/plain
3818      30 audio/mpeg
3819      29 image/png
3820      28 image/jpeg
3821      27 application/ogg
3822      26 audio/x-mp3
3823      25 image/tiff
3824      25 image/gif
3825      22 image/bmp
3826      22 audio/x-wav
3827      20 audio/x-flac
3828      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3829      18 video/x-ms-asf
3830      18 audio/x-musepack
3831      18 audio/x-mpeg
3832      18 application/x-ogg
3833      17 video/mpeg
3834      17 audio/x-scpls
3835      17 audio/ogg
3836      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3837 </pre>
3838
3839 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
3840
3841 <pre>
3842   count MIME type
3843   ----- -----------------------
3844      33 text/plain
3845      32 image/png
3846      32 image/jpeg
3847      29 audio/mpeg
3848      27 image/gif
3849      26 image/tiff
3850      26 application/ogg
3851      25 audio/x-mp3
3852      22 image/bmp
3853      21 audio/x-wav
3854      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3855      19 audio/x-mpeg
3856      18 video/mpeg
3857      18 audio/x-scpls
3858      18 audio/x-flac
3859      18 application/x-ogg
3860      17 video/x-ms-asf
3861      17 text/html
3862      17 audio/x-musepack
3863      16 image/x-xbitmap
3864 </pre>
3865
3866 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
3867
3868 <pre>
3869   count MIME type
3870   ----- -----------------------
3871      31 text/plain
3872      31 image/png
3873      31 image/jpeg
3874      29 audio/mpeg
3875      28 application/ogg
3876      27 image/gif
3877      26 image/tiff
3878      26 audio/x-mp3
3879      23 audio/x-wav
3880      22 image/bmp
3881      21 audio/x-flac
3882      20 audio/x-mpegurl
3883      19 audio/x-mpeg
3884      18 video/x-ms-asf
3885      18 video/mpeg
3886      18 audio/x-scpls
3887      18 application/x-ogg
3888      17 audio/x-musepack
3889      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3890      16 video/x-msvideo
3891 </pre>
3892
3893 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
3894 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
3895 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
3896 issues.</p>
3897
3898 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
3899 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
3900
3901       </div>
3902       <div class="tags">
3903
3904
3905         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3906
3907
3908       </div>
3909     </div>
3910     <div class="padding"></div>
3911
3912     <div class="entry">
3913       <div class="title">
3914         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
3915       </div>
3916       <div class="date">
3917         15th January 2013
3918       </div>
3919       <div class="body">
3920         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
3921 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
3922 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
3923 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
3924 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
3925 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
3926 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
3927 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
3928 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
3929 packages.</p>
3930
3931 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
3932 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
3933 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
3934 modalias.</p>
3935
3936 <p><blockquote>
3937 Package: package-name
3938 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
3939 </blockquote></p>
3940
3941 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
3942 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
3943
3944 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
3945 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
3946
3947 <p><blockquote>
3948 Package: cheese
3949 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
3950 </blockquote></p>
3951
3952 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
3953 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
3954
3955 <p><blockquote>
3956 Package: pcmciautils
3957 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
3958 </blockquote></p>
3959
3960 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
3961 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
3962
3963 <p><blockquote>
3964 Package: colorhug-client
3965 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
3966 </blockquote></p>
3967
3968 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
3969 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
3970 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
3971
3972 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
3973 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
3974 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
3975 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
3976 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
3977 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
3978 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
3979 Raring.</p>
3980
3981 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
3982 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
3983 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
3984 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
3985 try the
3986 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
3987 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
3988 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
3989 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
3990
3991 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
3992 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
3993
3994 <p><blockquote>
3995 % ./hw-support-lookup
3996 <br>yubikey-personalization
3997 <br>%
3998 </blockquote></p>
3999
4000 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
4001 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
4002
4003 <p><blockquote>
4004 % ./hw-support-lookup
4005 <br>pcmciautils
4006 <br>%
4007 </blockquote></p>
4008
4009 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
4010 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
4011 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
4012
4013 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
4014 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
4015 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
4016 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
4017 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
4018 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
4019 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
4020 see if it work.</p>
4021
4022 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4023 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4024 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4025 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4026
4027       </div>
4028       <div class="tags">
4029
4030
4031         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4032
4033
4034       </div>
4035     </div>
4036     <div class="padding"></div>
4037
4038     <div class="entry">
4039       <div class="title">
4040         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
4041       </div>
4042       <div class="date">
4043         14th January 2013
4044       </div>
4045       <div class="body">
4046         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
4047 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
4048 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
4049 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
4050 in
4051 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4052 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
4053
4054 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
4055
4056 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
4057 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
4058 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
4059 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
4060 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
4061 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
4062
4063 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
4064 this shell script:</p>
4065
4066 <pre>
4067 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
4068 </pre>
4069
4070 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
4071 using modinfo:</p>
4072
4073 <pre>
4074 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
4075 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
4076 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
4077 %
4078 </pre>
4079
4080 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
4081
4082 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
4083 Bridge memory controller:</p>
4084
4085 <p><blockquote>
4086 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
4087 </blockquote></p>
4088
4089 <p>This represent these values:</p>
4090
4091 <pre>
4092  v   00008086  (vendor)
4093  d   00002770  (device)
4094  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
4095  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
4096  bc  06        (bus class)
4097  sc  00        (bus subclass)
4098  i   00        (interface)
4099 </pre>
4100
4101 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
4102 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
4103 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
4104 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
4105
4106 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
4107 means.</p>
4108
4109 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
4110
4111 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
4112 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
4113
4114 <p><blockquote>
4115 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
4116 </blockquote></p>
4117
4118 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
4119
4120 <pre>
4121  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
4122  p    0001  (device product)
4123  d    0206  (bcddevice)
4124  dc     09  (device class)
4125  dsc    00  (device subclass)
4126  dp     00  (device protocol)
4127  ic     09  (interface class)
4128  isc    00  (interface subclass)
4129  ip     00  (interface protocol)
4130 </pre>
4131
4132 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
4133 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
4134 these alias entries show up:</p>
4135
4136 <p><blockquote>
4137 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
4138 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
4139 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
4140 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
4141 </blockquote></p>
4142
4143 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
4144 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
4145 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
4146
4147 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
4148
4149 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
4150 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
4151
4152 <p><blockquote>
4153 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4154 </blockquote></p>
4155
4156 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
4157
4158 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
4159
4160 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
4161 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
4162 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
4163
4164 <p><blockquote>
4165 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
4166 </blockquote></p>
4167
4168 <p>The values present are</p>
4169
4170 <pre>
4171  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
4172  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
4173  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
4174  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
4175  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
4176  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
4177  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
4178  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
4179  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
4180  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
4181  ct   10             (chassis type)
4182  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
4183 </pre>
4184
4185 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
4186 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
4187
4188 <pre>
4189   3 Desktop
4190   4 Low Profile Desktop
4191   5 Pizza Box
4192   6 Mini Tower
4193   7 Tower
4194   8 Portable
4195   9 Laptop
4196  10 Notebook
4197  11 Hand Held
4198  12 Docking Station
4199  13 All In One
4200  14 Sub Notebook
4201  15 Space-saving
4202  16 Lunch Box
4203  17 Main Server Chassis
4204  18 Expansion Chassis
4205  19 Sub Chassis
4206  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
4207  21 Peripheral Chassis
4208  22 RAID Chassis
4209  23 Rack Mount Chassis
4210  24 Sealed-case PC
4211  25 Multi-system
4212  26 CompactPCI
4213  27 AdvancedTCA
4214  28 Blade
4215  29 Blade Enclosing
4216 </pre>
4217
4218 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
4219 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
4220 claim it is a desktop.</p>
4221
4222 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
4223
4224 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
4225 test machine:</p>
4226
4227 <p><blockquote>
4228 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
4229 </blockquote></p>
4230
4231 <p>The values present are</p>
4232
4233 <pre>
4234   ty  01  (type)
4235   pr  00  (prototype)
4236   id  00  (id)
4237   ex  00  (extra)
4238 </pre>
4239
4240 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
4241 the valid values are.</p>
4242
4243 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
4244
4245 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
4246 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
4247 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
4248 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
4249 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
4250 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
4251 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
4252
4253 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
4254
4255 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
4256 one can use the following shell script:</p>
4257
4258 <pre>
4259   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
4260     echo "$id" ; \
4261     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
4262   done
4263 </pre>
4264
4265 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
4266 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
4267
4268 <pre>
4269   acpi:ACPI0003:
4270     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4271   acpi:device:
4272   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4273   acpi:IBM0068:
4274     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4275     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4276     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4277     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4278   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4279     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4280     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4281     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4282   [...]
4283 </pre>
4284
4285 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4286 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4287 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4288 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4289
4290 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4291 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4292 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4293
4294       </div>
4295       <div class="tags">
4296
4297
4298         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4299
4300
4301       </div>
4302     </div>
4303     <div class="padding"></div>
4304
4305     <div class="entry">
4306       <div class="title">
4307         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
4308       </div>
4309       <div class="date">
4310         10th January 2013
4311       </div>
4312       <div class="body">
4313         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4314 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4315 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4316 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4317 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4318 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4319 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4320 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4321 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4322 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4323 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4324 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4325 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4326 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4327 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4328 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4329 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4330 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4331
4332       </div>
4333       <div class="tags">
4334
4335
4336         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4337
4338
4339       </div>
4340     </div>
4341     <div class="padding"></div>
4342
4343     <div class="entry">
4344       <div class="title">
4345         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
4346       </div>
4347       <div class="date">
4348          9th January 2013
4349       </div>
4350       <div class="body">
4351         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4352 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4353 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4354 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4355 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4356 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4357 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4358 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4359 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4360 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4361 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4362
4363 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4364 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4365 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4366 simple:
4367
4368 <ul>
4369
4370 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4371   starting when a user log in.</li>
4372
4373 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4374   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4375
4376 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4377   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4378   packages.</li>
4379
4380 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4381   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4382
4383 </ul>
4384
4385 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4386 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4387 discover database to find packages and
4388 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4389 packages.</p>
4390
4391 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4392 draft package is now checked into
4393 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4394 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4395 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4396 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4397 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4398 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4399 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4400 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4401 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4402 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4403 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4404 because of the freeze).</p>
4405
4406 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4407 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4408 inserted):</p>
4409
4410 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4411
4412 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4413 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4414 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4415
4416 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4417 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4418 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4419 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4420 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4421 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4422 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4423
4424 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4425 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4426 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4427 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4428 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4429 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4430 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4431 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4432 not be installed?</p>
4433
4434 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4435 please send me an email. :)</p>
4436
4437       </div>
4438       <div class="tags">
4439
4440
4441         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4442
4443
4444       </div>
4445     </div>
4446     <div class="padding"></div>
4447
4448     <div class="entry">
4449       <div class="title">
4450         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
4451       </div>
4452       <div class="date">
4453          2nd January 2013
4454       </div>
4455       <div class="body">
4456         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4457 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4458 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4459 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4460 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4461 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4462 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4463 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4464 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4465 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4466
4467 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4468 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4469 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4470
4471       </div>
4472       <div class="tags">
4473
4474
4475         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4476
4477
4478       </div>
4479     </div>
4480     <div class="padding"></div>
4481
4482     <div class="entry">
4483       <div class="title">
4484         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
4485       </div>
4486       <div class="date">
4487         25th December 2012
4488       </div>
4489       <div class="body">
4490         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4491 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4492
4493 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4494 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4495 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4496 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4497 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4498 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4499 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4500 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4501 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4502 name.</p>
4503
4504 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4505 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4506 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4507
4508 <blockquote><pre>
4509 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4510 cd bitcoin
4511 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4512 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4513 </pre></blockquote>
4514
4515 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4516 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4517 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4518 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4519 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4520 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4521 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4522 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4523 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4524
4525 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4526 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4527 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4528
4529       </div>
4530       <div class="tags">
4531
4532
4533         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4534
4535
4536       </div>
4537     </div>
4538     <div class="padding"></div>
4539
4540     <div class="entry">
4541       <div class="title">
4542         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4543       </div>
4544       <div class="date">
4545         21st December 2012
4546       </div>
4547       <div class="body">
4548         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4549 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4550 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4551 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4552 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4553 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4554 is now maintained by a
4555 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
4556 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
4557 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
4558 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
4559 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
4560 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
4561 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
4562 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
4563 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
4564 Corallo in a
4565 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4566 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4567 Debian package.</p>
4568
4569 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4570 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4571 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4572 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4573 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4574 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4575 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4576 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4577 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4578 new version to unstable.
4579
4580 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4581 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4582 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4583 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4584 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4585 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4586 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4587 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4588 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4589 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4590 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4591 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4592 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4593 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4594 have not tested them.</p>
4595
4596 <p>My
4597 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4598 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4599 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4600 years ago, as can be
4601 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
4602 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
4603 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
4604 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
4605 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
4606 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
4607 the same address as last time,
4608 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4609
4610       </div>
4611       <div class="tags">
4612
4613
4614         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4615
4616
4617       </div>
4618     </div>
4619     <div class="padding"></div>
4620
4621     <div class="entry">
4622       <div class="title">
4623         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4624       </div>
4625       <div class="date">
4626          7th September 2012
4627       </div>
4628       <div class="body">
4629         <p>As I
4630 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
4631 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
4632 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
4633 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
4634 repository for the project</a>.</p>
4635
4636 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
4637 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
4638 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
4639 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
4640
4641 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4642 PostScript formats at
4643 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
4644 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
4645
4646       </div>
4647       <div class="tags">
4648
4649
4650         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
4651
4652
4653       </div>
4654     </div>
4655     <div class="padding"></div>
4656
4657     <div class="entry">
4658       <div class="title">
4659         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
4660       </div>
4661       <div class="date">
4662         16th August 2012
4663       </div>
4664       <div class="body">
4665         <p>I dag fyller
4666 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
4667 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
4668 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
4669
4670       </div>
4671       <div class="tags">
4672
4673
4674         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
4675
4676
4677       </div>
4678     </div>
4679     <div class="padding"></div>
4680
4681     <div class="entry">
4682       <div class="title">
4683         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4684       </div>
4685       <div class="date">
4686         24th June 2012
4687       </div>
4688       <div class="body">
4689         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4690 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
4691 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
4692 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4693 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4694 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
4695 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4696 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4697 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
4698 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
4699 missing in my book.</p>
4700
4701 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4702 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4703 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4704 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
4705 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
4706 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
4707 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
4708
4709       </div>
4710       <div class="tags">
4711
4712
4713         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
4714
4715
4716       </div>
4717     </div>
4718     <div class="padding"></div>
4719
4720     <div class="entry">
4721       <div class="title">
4722         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4723       </div>
4724       <div class="date">
4725         21st November 2011
4726       </div>
4727       <div class="body">
4728         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
4729 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
4730 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4731 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
4732 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4733 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
4734 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
4735 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
4736 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4737 the tools to do so.</p>
4738
4739 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4740 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
4741 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4742 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
4743
4744 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4745 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
4746 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
4747 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4748 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4749 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4750 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4751 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
4752
4753 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4754 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4755 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
4756
4757 <p><pre>
4758 #!/usr/bin/perl
4759 use strict;
4760 use warnings;
4761 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4762 BEGIN {
4763     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4764     my %rhelmodules = (
4765         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
4766         );
4767     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4768         eval "use $module;";
4769         if ($@) {
4770             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4771             system("yum install -y $pkg");
4772             eval "use $module;";
4773         }
4774     }
4775 }
4776 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
4777
4778 upgrade_dell();
4779
4780 exit 0;
4781
4782 sub run_firmware_script {
4783     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4784     unless ($script) {
4785         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
4786         exit 1
4787     }
4788     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
4789
4790     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4791         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
4792     } else {
4793         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
4794     }
4795 }
4796
4797 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4798     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4799     # Run firmware packages
4800     for my $dir (@dirs) {
4801         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
4802         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
4803         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4804             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4805             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
4806         }
4807         closedir $dh;
4808     }
4809 }
4810
4811 sub download {
4812     my $url = shift;
4813     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
4814     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
4815 }
4816
4817 sub upgrade_dell {
4818     my @dirs;
4819     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4820     chomp $product;
4821
4822     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4823
4824         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4825         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
4826
4827         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4828             CLEANUP => 1
4829             );
4830         chdir($tmpdir);
4831         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
4832         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
4833         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
4834         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4835         my $fwopts = "-q";
4836         if (@paths) {
4837             for my $url (@paths) {
4838                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4839             }
4840             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4841         } else {
4842             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4843             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4844         }
4845         chdir('/');
4846     } else {
4847         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4848         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4849     }
4850 }
4851
4852 sub fetch_dell_fw {
4853     my $path = shift;
4854     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
4855     download($url);
4856 }
4857
4858 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4859 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
4860 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
4861 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4862     my $filename = shift;
4863
4864     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4865     chomp $product;
4866     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4867
4868     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
4869
4870     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4871     my @paths;
4872     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4873         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
4874         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
4875         my $oscode;
4876         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
4877             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
4878         } else {
4879             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
4880         }
4881         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
4882         {
4883             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
4884         }
4885     }
4886     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
4887         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
4888
4889         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
4890         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
4891
4892         my $cpath = $component->{path};
4893         for my $path (@paths) {
4894             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
4895                 push(@paths, $cpath);
4896             }
4897         }
4898     }
4899     return @paths;
4900 }
4901 </pre>
4902
4903 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
4904 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
4905 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
4906 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
4907 outdated.</p>
4908
4909       </div>
4910       <div class="tags">
4911
4912
4913         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4914
4915
4916       </div>
4917     </div>
4918     <div class="padding"></div>
4919
4920     <div class="entry">
4921       <div class="title">
4922         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
4923       </div>
4924       <div class="date">
4925          4th August 2011
4926       </div>
4927       <div class="body">
4928         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
4929 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
4930 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
4931 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
4932 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
4933 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
4934 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
4935 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
4936 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
4937
4938 <p><blockquote>
4939 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
4940 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
4941 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
4942 </blockquote></p>
4943
4944 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
4945 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
4946 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
4947 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
4948 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
4949 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
4950 hard to explain.</p>
4951
4952 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
4953 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
4954 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
4955 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
4956 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
4957 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
4958 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
4959 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
4960 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
4961 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
4962 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
4963 mode).</p>
4964
4965 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
4966 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
4967 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
4968 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
4969 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
4970 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
4971 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
4972 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
4973 after visiting single user mode.</p>
4974
4975 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
4976 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
4977 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
4978 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
4979 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
4980 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
4981 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
4982 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
4983
4984 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
4985 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
4986 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
4987
4988       </div>
4989       <div class="tags">
4990
4991
4992         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4993
4994
4995       </div>
4996     </div>
4997     <div class="padding"></div>
4998
4999     <div class="entry">
5000       <div class="title">
5001         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
5002       </div>
5003       <div class="date">
5004         30th July 2011
5005       </div>
5006       <div class="body">
5007         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
5008 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
5009 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
5010 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
5011 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
5012 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
5013 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
5014 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
5015 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
5016 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
5017 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
5018 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
5019 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
5020
5021 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
5022 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
5023 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
5024 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
5025 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
5026 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
5027 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
5028 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
5029 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
5030
5031 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
5032 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
5033 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
5034 is presented.</p>
5035
5036 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
5037 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
5038 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
5039 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
5040 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
5041 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
5042 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
5043 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
5044 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
5045 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
5046 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
5047 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
5048 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
5049 find time to push this forward.</p>
5050
5051       </div>
5052       <div class="tags">
5053
5054
5055         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5056
5057
5058       </div>
5059     </div>
5060     <div class="padding"></div>
5061
5062     <div class="entry">
5063       <div class="title">
5064         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</a>
5065       </div>
5066       <div class="date">
5067         29th July 2011
5068       </div>
5069       <div class="body">
5070         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
5071 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
5072 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
5073 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
5074 issues.</p>
5075
5076 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
5077 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
5078 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
5079
5080 <ol>
5081
5082 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
5083 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
5084 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
5085 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
5086 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
5087 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
5088 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
5089 Debian.</li>
5090
5091 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
5092 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
5093 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
5094 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
5095 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
5096 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
5097 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
5098 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
5099 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
5100 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
5101 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
5102 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
5103 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
5104
5105 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
5106 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
5107 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
5108 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
5109 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
5110 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
5111 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
5112 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
5113 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
5114 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
5115
5116 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
5117 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
5118 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
5119 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
5120 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
5121 latter behaviour.</li>
5122
5123 </ol>
5124
5125 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
5126 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
5127 it do not matter much.</p>
5128
5129 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
5130 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
5131 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
5132
5133       </div>
5134       <div class="tags">
5135
5136
5137         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
5138
5139
5140       </div>
5141     </div>
5142     <div class="padding"></div>
5143
5144     <div class="entry">
5145       <div class="title">
5146         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
5147       </div>
5148       <div class="date">
5149         26th July 2011
5150       </div>
5151       <div class="body">
5152         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
5153 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
5154 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
5155 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
5156 security support for a few years.</p>
5157
5158 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
5159 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
5160 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
5161 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
5162 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
5163 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
5164 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
5165 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
5166 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
5167 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
5168 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
5169 easier in the future.</p>
5170
5171 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
5172 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
5173 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
5174 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
5175 do not have time for.</p>
5176
5177       </div>
5178       <div class="tags">
5179
5180
5181         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
5182
5183
5184       </div>
5185     </div>
5186     <div class="padding"></div>
5187
5188     <div class="entry">
5189       <div class="title">
5190         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
5191       </div>
5192       <div class="date">
5193          3rd April 2011
5194       </div>
5195       <div class="body">
5196         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
5197 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
5198 update in English.</p>
5199
5200 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
5201 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
5202 of the British service
5203 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
5204 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
5205 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
5206 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
5207 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
5208 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
5209 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
5210 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
5211 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
5212 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
5213 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
5214 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
5215 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
5216
5217 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
5218 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
5219 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
5220 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
5221 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
5222 public infrastructure.</p>
5223
5224 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
5225 such service?</p>
5226
5227       </div>
5228       <div class="tags">
5229
5230
5231         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
5232
5233
5234       </div>
5235     </div>
5236     <div class="padding"></div>
5237
5238     <div class="entry">
5239       <div class="title">
5240         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
5241       </div>
5242       <div class="date">
5243         28th January 2011
5244       </div>
5245       <div class="body">
5246         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
5247 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
5248 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
5249 available on the Internet, and check our locally
5250 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
5251 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
5252 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
5253 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
5254 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
5255 out which security holes were present in our free software
5256 collection.</p>
5257
5258 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
5259 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
5260 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
5261 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
5262 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
5263 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
5264 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
5265 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
5266 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
5267 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
5268 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5269 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5270 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5271 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5272 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5273 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5274
5275 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5276 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5277 check out, one could look up
5278 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search?cpe=cpe%3A%2Fa%3Agnu%3Agzip:1.3.3">cpe:/a:gnu:gzip:1.3.3
5279 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5280 The most recent one is
5281 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5282 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5283 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5284
5285 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5286 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5287 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5288 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5289 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5290 security issues out.</p>
5291
5292 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5293 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5294 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5295 RHEL is providing
5296 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5297 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5298 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5299
5300 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5301 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5302 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5303 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5304 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5305 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5306 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5307 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5308 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5309 established soon.</p>
5310
5311 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5312 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5313 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5314 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5315 for their packages.</p>
5316
5317       </div>
5318       <div class="tags">
5319
5320
5321         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
5322
5323
5324       </div>
5325     </div>
5326     <div class="padding"></div>
5327
5328     <div class="entry">
5329       <div class="title">
5330         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
5331       </div>
5332       <div class="date">
5333         23rd January 2011
5334       </div>
5335       <div class="body">
5336         <p>In the
5337 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5338 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5339 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5340 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5341 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5342 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5343 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5344 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5345 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5346 one of my machines like this:</p>
5347
5348 <pre>
5349 loaded modules:
5350 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5351 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5352 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5353 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5354 10de:03ec pata_amd
5355 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5356 1022:1103 k8temp
5357 109e:036e bttv
5358 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5359 11ab:4364 sky2
5360 </pre>
5361
5362 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5363 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5364
5365 <pre>
5366 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5367     echo loaded pci modules:
5368     (
5369         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5370         for address in * ; do
5371             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5372                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5373                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5374                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5375                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5376                     echo "$id $module"
5377                 fi
5378             fi
5379         done
5380     )
5381     echo
5382 fi
5383 </pre>
5384
5385 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5386 mappings:</p>
5387
5388 <pre>
5389 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5390     echo loaded usb modules:
5391     (
5392         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5393         for address in * ; do
5394             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5395                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5396                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5397                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5398                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5399                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5400                         echo "$id $module"
5401                     fi
5402                 fi
5403             fi
5404         done
5405     )
5406     echo
5407 fi
5408 </pre>
5409
5410 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5411 well.</p>
5412
5413       </div>
5414       <div class="tags">
5415
5416
5417         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5418
5419
5420       </div>
5421     </div>
5422     <div class="padding"></div>
5423
5424     <div class="entry">
5425       <div class="title">
5426         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a>
5427       </div>
5428       <div class="date">
5429         22nd December 2010
5430       </div>
5431       <div class="body">
5432         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5433 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5434 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5435 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5436 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5437 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5438 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5439 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5440 university.</p>
5441
5442 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5443 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5444 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5445 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5446 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5447 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5448 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5449 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5450
5451 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5452 I perform on a new model.</p>
5453
5454 <ul>
5455
5456 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5457 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5458 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5459
5460 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5461 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5462
5463 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5464 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5465 reported by the program.</li>
5466
5467 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5468 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5469 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5470 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5471 normally test this by playing
5472 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5473 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5474
5475 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5476 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5477
5478 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5479 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5480
5481 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5482 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5483
5484 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5485 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5486 few.</li>
5487
5488 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5489 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5490 notice this.</li>
5491
5492 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5493 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5494 resume.</li>
5495
5496 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5497 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5498 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5499 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5500 not.</li>
5501
5502 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5503 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5504 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5505 existence.</li>
5506
5507 </ul>
5508
5509 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5510 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5511 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5512 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5513 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5514 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5515 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5516 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5517
5518       </div>
5519       <div class="tags">
5520
5521
5522         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5523
5524
5525       </div>
5526     </div>
5527     <div class="padding"></div>
5528
5529     <div class="entry">
5530       <div class="title">
5531         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5532       </div>
5533       <div class="date">
5534         11th December 2010
5535       </div>
5536       <div class="body">
5537         <p>As I continue to explore
5538 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5539 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5540 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5541
5542 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5543 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5544 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5545 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5546 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5547 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5548 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5549 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5550 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5551 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5552 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5553 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5554 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5555 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5556 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5557 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5558 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
5559 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5560 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5561 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
5562
5563 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5564 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5565 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5566 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5567 If the Skolelinux foundation
5568 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5569 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5570 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5571 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
5572 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5573 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5574 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5575 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5576
5577 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5578 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5579 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5580 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5581 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5582 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5583 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5584 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5585 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5586 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5587 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5588 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5589 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5590 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5591 currencies.</p>
5592
5593 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5594 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5595 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5596 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5597 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5598 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5599 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5600 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5601 BitCoins.  Check out
5602 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5603 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5604 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5605 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5606 yet.</p>
5607
5608 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5609 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5610 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5611 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5612 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5613
5614       </div>
5615       <div class="tags">
5616
5617
5618         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
5619
5620
5621       </div>
5622     </div>
5623     <div class="padding"></div>
5624
5625     <div class="entry">
5626       <div class="title">
5627         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
5628       </div>
5629       <div class="date">
5630         10th December 2010
5631       </div>
5632       <div class="body">
5633         <p>With this weeks lawless
5634 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5635 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5636 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5637 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5638 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5639 A blog post from
5640 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5641 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5642 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5643 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5644 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5645 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5646 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5647
5648 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5649 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5650 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5651 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5652 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5653 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5654 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5655 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5656 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5657 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5658
5659 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5660 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5661 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5662 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5663 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5664 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5665 you can even get
5666 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5667 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5668 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5669 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5670
5671 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5672 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5673 donations to the address
5674 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5675
5676       </div>
5677       <div class="tags">
5678
5679
5680         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
5681
5682
5683       </div>
5684     </div>
5685     <div class="padding"></div>
5686
5687     <div class="entry">
5688       <div class="title">
5689         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5690       </div>
5691       <div class="date">
5692         27th November 2010
5693       </div>
5694       <div class="body">
5695         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5696 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5697 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5698 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5699 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5700 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5701 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5702 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5703
5704 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5705 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5706 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5707 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5708 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5709 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5710 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5711 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5712 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5713 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5714 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5715
5716 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5717 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5718 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5719 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5720 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5721 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5722 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5723 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5724 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5725 what is going on.</p>
5726
5727       </div>
5728       <div class="tags">
5729
5730
5731         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
5732
5733
5734       </div>
5735     </div>
5736     <div class="padding"></div>
5737
5738     <div class="entry">
5739       <div class="title">
5740         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</a>
5741       </div>
5742       <div class="date">
5743         22nd November 2010
5744       </div>
5745       <div class="body">
5746         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
5747 upgrade testing of the
5748 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5749 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
5750 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
5751 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
5752
5753 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5754
5755 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5756
5757 <blockquote><p>
5758   apache2.2-bin
5759   aptdaemon
5760   baobab
5761   binfmt-support
5762   browser-plugin-gnash
5763   cheese-common
5764   cli-common
5765   cups-pk-helper
5766   dmz-cursor-theme
5767   empathy
5768   empathy-common
5769   freedesktop-sound-theme
5770   freeglut3
5771   gconf-defaults-service
5772   gdm-themes
5773   gedit-plugins
5774   geoclue
5775   geoclue-hostip
5776   geoclue-localnet
5777   geoclue-manual
5778   geoclue-yahoo
5779   gnash
5780   gnash-common
5781   gnome
5782   gnome-backgrounds
5783   gnome-cards-data
5784   gnome-codec-install
5785   gnome-core
5786   gnome-desktop-environment
5787   gnome-disk-utility
5788   gnome-screenshot
5789   gnome-search-tool
5790   gnome-session-canberra
5791   gnome-system-log
5792   gnome-themes-extras
5793   gnome-themes-more
5794   gnome-user-share
5795   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5796   gstreamer0.10-tools
5797   gtk2-engines
5798   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5799   gtk2-engines-smooth
5800   hamster-applet
5801   libapache2-mod-dnssd
5802   libapr1
5803   libaprutil1
5804   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
5805   libaprutil1-ldap
5806   libart2.0-cil
5807   libboost-date-time1.42.0
5808   libboost-python1.42.0
5809   libboost-thread1.42.0
5810   libchamplain-0.4-0
5811   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
5812   libcheese-gtk18
5813   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5814   libcryptui0
5815   libdiscid0
5816   libelf1
5817   libepc-1.0-2
5818   libepc-common
5819   libepc-ui-1.0-2
5820   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5821   libfreerdp0
5822   libgconf2.0-cil
5823   libgdata-common
5824   libgdata7
5825   libgdu-gtk0
5826   libgee2
5827   libgeoclue0
5828   libgexiv2-0
5829   libgif4
5830   libglade2.0-cil
5831   libglib2.0-cil
5832   libgmime2.4-cil
5833   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5834   libgnome2.24-cil
5835   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5836   libgpod-common
5837   libgpod4
5838   libgtk2.0-cil
5839   libgtkglext1
5840   libgtksourceview2.0-common
5841   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5842   libmono-addins0.2-cil
5843   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5844   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5845   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5846   libmono-posix2.0-cil
5847   libmono-security2.0-cil
5848   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5849   libmono-system2.0-cil
5850   libmtp8
5851   libmusicbrainz3-6
5852   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5853   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5854   libopal3.6.8
5855   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
5856   libpt2.6.7
5857   libpython2.6
5858   librpm1
5859   librpmio1
5860   libsdl1.2debian
5861   libsrtp0
5862   libssh-4
5863   libtelepathy-farsight0
5864   libtelepathy-glib0
5865   libtidy-0.99-0
5866   media-player-info
5867   mesa-utils
5868   mono-2.0-gac
5869   mono-gac
5870   mono-runtime
5871   nautilus-sendto
5872   nautilus-sendto-empathy
5873   p7zip-full
5874   pkg-config
5875   python-aptdaemon
5876   python-aptdaemon-gtk
5877   python-axiom
5878   python-beautifulsoup
5879   python-bugbuddy
5880   python-clientform
5881   python-coherence
5882   python-configobj
5883   python-crypto
5884   python-cupshelpers
5885   python-elementtree
5886   python-epsilon
5887   python-evolution
5888   python-feedparser
5889   python-gdata
5890   python-gdbm
5891   python-gst0.10
5892   python-gtkglext1
5893   python-gtksourceview2
5894   python-httplib2
5895   python-louie
5896   python-mako
5897   python-markupsafe
5898   python-mechanize
5899   python-nevow
5900   python-notify
5901   python-opengl
5902   python-openssl
5903   python-pam
5904   python-pkg-resources
5905   python-pyasn1
5906   python-pysqlite2
5907   python-rdflib
5908   python-serial
5909   python-tagpy
5910   python-twisted-bin
5911   python-twisted-conch
5912   python-twisted-core
5913   python-twisted-web
5914   python-utidylib
5915   python-webkit
5916   python-xdg
5917   python-zope.interface
5918   remmina
5919   remmina-plugin-data
5920   remmina-plugin-rdp
5921   remmina-plugin-vnc
5922   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5923   rhythmbox-plugins
5924   rpm-common
5925   rpm2cpio
5926   seahorse-plugins
5927   shotwell
5928   software-center
5929   system-config-printer-udev
5930   telepathy-gabble
5931   telepathy-mission-control-5
5932   telepathy-salut
5933   tomboy
5934   totem
5935   totem-coherence
5936   totem-mozilla
5937   totem-plugins
5938   transmission-common
5939   xdg-user-dirs
5940   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
5941   xserver-xephyr
5942 </p></blockquote>
5943
5944 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5945
5946 <blockquote><p>
5947   cheese
5948   ekiga
5949   eog
5950   epiphany-extensions
5951   evolution-exchange
5952   fast-user-switch-applet
5953   file-roller
5954   gcalctool
5955   gconf-editor
5956   gdm
5957   gedit
5958   gedit-common
5959   gnome-games
5960   gnome-games-data
5961   gnome-nettool
5962   gnome-system-tools
5963   gnome-themes
5964   gnuchess
5965   gucharmap
5966   guile-1.8-libs
5967   libavahi-ui0
5968   libdmx1
5969   libgalago3
5970   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5971   libgtksourceview2.0-0
5972   liblircclient0
5973   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5974   libspeexdsp1
5975   libsvga1
5976   rhythmbox
5977   seahorse
5978   sound-juicer
5979   system-config-printer
5980   totem-common
5981   transmission-gtk
5982   vinagre
5983   vino
5984 </p></blockquote>
5985
5986 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5987
5988 <blockquote><p>
5989   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5990 </p></blockquote>
5991
5992 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5993
5994 <blockquote><p>
5995 [nothing]
5996 </p></blockquote>
5997
5998 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
5999
6000 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6001
6002 <blockquote><p>
6003   ksmserver
6004 </p></blockquote>
6005
6006 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6007
6008 <blockquote><p>
6009   kwin
6010   network-manager-kde
6011 </p></blockquote>
6012
6013 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6014
6015 <blockquote><p>
6016   arts
6017   dolphin
6018   freespacenotifier
6019   google-gadgets-gst
6020   google-gadgets-xul
6021   kappfinder
6022   kcalc
6023   kcharselect
6024   kde-core
6025   kde-plasma-desktop
6026   kde-standard
6027   kde-window-manager
6028   kdeartwork
6029   kdeartwork-emoticons
6030   kdeartwork-style
6031   kdeartwork-theme-icon
6032   kdebase
6033   kdebase-apps
6034   kdebase-workspace
6035   kdebase-workspace-bin
6036   kdebase-workspace-data
6037   kdeeject
6038   kdelibs
6039   kdeplasma-addons
6040   kdeutils
6041   kdewallpapers
6042   kdf
6043   kfloppy
6044   kgpg
6045   khelpcenter4
6046   kinfocenter
6047   konq-plugins-l10n
6048   konqueror-nsplugins
6049   kscreensaver
6050   kscreensaver-xsavers
6051   ktimer
6052   kwrite
6053   libgle3
6054   libkde4-ruby1.8
6055   libkonq5
6056   libkonq5-templates
6057   libnetpbm10
6058   libplasma-ruby
6059   libplasma-ruby1.8
6060   libqt4-ruby1.8
6061   marble-data
6062   marble-plugins
6063   netpbm
6064   nuvola-icon-theme
6065   plasma-dataengines-workspace
6066   plasma-desktop
6067   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
6068   plasma-runners-addons
6069   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
6070   plasma-scriptengine-python
6071   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
6072   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
6073   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
6074   plasma-scriptengines
6075   plasma-wallpapers-addons
6076   plasma-widget-folderview
6077   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6078   ruby
6079   sweeper
6080   update-notifier-kde
6081   xscreensaver-data-extra
6082   xscreensaver-gl
6083   xscreensaver-gl-extra
6084   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6085 </p></blockquote>
6086
6087 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6088
6089 <blockquote><p>
6090   ark
6091   google-gadgets-common
6092   google-gadgets-qt
6093   htdig
6094   kate
6095   kdebase-bin
6096   kdebase-data
6097   kdepasswd
6098   kfind
6099   klipper
6100   konq-plugins
6101   konqueror
6102   ksysguard
6103   ksysguardd
6104   libarchive1
6105   libcln6
6106   libeet1
6107   libeina-svn-06
6108   libggadget-1.0-0b
6109   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
6110   libgps19
6111   libkdecorations4
6112   libkephal4
6113   libkonq4
6114   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
6115   libkscreensaver5
6116   libksgrd4
6117   libksignalplotter4
6118   libkunitconversion4
6119   libkwineffects1a
6120   libmarblewidget4
6121   libntrack-qt4-1
6122   libntrack0
6123   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
6124   libplasmaclock4a
6125   libplasmagenericshell4
6126   libprocesscore4a
6127   libprocessui4a
6128   libqalculate5
6129   libqedje0a
6130   libqtruby4shared2
6131   libqzion0a
6132   libruby1.8
6133   libscim8c2a
6134   libsmokekdecore4-3
6135   libsmokekdeui4-3
6136   libsmokekfile3
6137   libsmokekhtml3
6138   libsmokekio3
6139   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
6140   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
6141   libsmokekparts3
6142   libsmokektexteditor3
6143   libsmokekutils3
6144   libsmokenepomuk3
6145   libsmokephonon3
6146   libsmokeplasma3
6147   libsmokeqtcore4-3
6148   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
6149   libsmokeqtgui4-3
6150   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
6151   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
6152   libsmokeqtscript4-3
6153   libsmokeqtsql4-3
6154   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
6155   libsmokeqttest4-3
6156   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
6157   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
6158   libsmokeqtxml4-3
6159   libsmokesolid3
6160   libsmokesoprano3
6161   libtaskmanager4a
6162   libtidy-0.99-0
6163   libweather-ion4a
6164   libxklavier16
6165   libxxf86misc1
6166   okteta
6167   oxygencursors
6168   plasma-dataengines-addons
6169   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
6170   plasma-widget-lancelot
6171   plasma-widgets-addons
6172   plasma-widgets-workspace
6173   polkit-kde-1
6174   ruby1.8
6175   systemsettings
6176   update-notifier-common
6177 </p></blockquote>
6178
6179 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
6180 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
6181 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
6182 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
6183
6184       </div>
6185       <div class="tags">
6186
6187
6188         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6189
6190
6191       </div>
6192     </div>
6193     <div class="padding"></div>
6194
6195     <div class="entry">
6196       <div class="title">
6197         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
6198       </div>
6199       <div class="date">
6200         22nd November 2010
6201       </div>
6202       <div class="body">
6203         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
6204 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
6205 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
6206 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
6207 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
6208 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
6209 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
6210 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
6211 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
6212
6213 <p>I found
6214 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
6215 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
6216 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
6217 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
6218 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
6219 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
6220
6221 <pre>
6222 #!/bin/sh
6223
6224 # Based on
6225 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
6226
6227 set -e
6228 set -x
6229
6230 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
6231     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
6232     exit 1
6233 else
6234     host="$1"
6235 fi
6236
6237 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
6238     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
6239     exit 1
6240 fi
6241
6242 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
6243 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6244 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6245 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
6246
6247 img=$host.img
6248 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
6249 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
6250
6251 parted $img mklabel msdos
6252 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
6253 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
6254 parted $img set 1 boot on
6255
6256 modprobe dm-mod
6257 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
6258 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
6259
6260 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
6261 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
6262 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
6263
6264 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
6265 losetup -d /dev/loop0
6266 </pre>
6267
6268 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6269 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6270
6271 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6272 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6273 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6274 seem to work just fine.</p>
6275
6276       </div>
6277       <div class="tags">
6278
6279
6280         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6281
6282
6283       </div>
6284     </div>
6285     <div class="padding"></div>
6286
6287     <div class="entry">
6288       <div class="title">
6289         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</a>
6290       </div>
6291       <div class="date">
6292         20th November 2010
6293       </div>
6294       <div class="body">
6295         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6296 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6297 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6298 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6299
6300 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6301 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6302 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6303
6304 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6305
6306 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6307
6308 <blockquote><p>
6309   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6310   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6311   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6312   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6313   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6314   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6315   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6316   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6317   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6318   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6319   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6320   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6321   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6322   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6323   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6324   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6325   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6326   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6327   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6328   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6329   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6330   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6331   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6332   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6333   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6334   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6335   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6336   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6337   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6338   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6339   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6340   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6341   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6342   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6343   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6344   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6345   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6346   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6347   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6348   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6349   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6350   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6351   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6352   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6353   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6354   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6355   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6356   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6357   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6358   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6359   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6360   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6361   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6362   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6363   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6364   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6365   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6366   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6367   zip
6368 </p></blockquote>
6369
6370 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6371
6372 <blockquote><p>
6373   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6374   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6375   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6376   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6377   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6378   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6379   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6380   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6381   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6382   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6383   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6384   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6385   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6386   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6387   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6388   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6389   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6390   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6391   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6392   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6393   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6394   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6395   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6396   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6397   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6398   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6399   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6400   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6401   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6402 </p></blockquote>
6403
6404 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6405
6406 <blockquote><p>
6407   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6408 </p></blockquote>
6409
6410 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6411
6412 <blockquote><p>
6413 [nothing]
6414 </p></blockquote>
6415
6416 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6417
6418 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6419
6420 <blockquote><p>
6421   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6422   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6423   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6424   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6425   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6426   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6427   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6428   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6429   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6430   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6431   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6432   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6433   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6434   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6435   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6436   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6437   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6438   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6439   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6440   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6441   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6442   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6443   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6444   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6445   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6446   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6447   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6448   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6449   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6450   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6451 </p></blockquote>
6452
6453 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6454
6455 <blockquote><p>
6456   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6457   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6458   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6459   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6460   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6461   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6462   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6463   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6464   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6465   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6466   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6467   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6468   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6469   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6470   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6471   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6472   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6473   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6474   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6475   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6476   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6477   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6478   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6479   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6480   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6481   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6482   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6483   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6484   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6485   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6486   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6487   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6488   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6489 </p></blockquote>
6490
6491 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6492
6493 <blockquote><p>
6494   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6495   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6496   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6497   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6498   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6499   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6500   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6501 </p></blockquote>
6502
6503 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6504
6505 <blockquote><p>
6506   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6507 </p></blockquote>
6508
6509       </div>
6510       <div class="tags">
6511
6512
6513         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6514
6515
6516       </div>
6517     </div>
6518     <div class="padding"></div>
6519
6520     <div class="entry">
6521       <div class="title">
6522         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6523       </div>
6524       <div class="date">
6525         20th November 2010
6526       </div>
6527       <div class="body">
6528         <p>Answering
6529 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6530 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6531 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6532 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6533 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6534 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6535 releases out more often.</p>
6536
6537 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6538 I have considered setting up a <a
6539 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6540 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6541 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6542 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6543 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6544 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6545 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6546 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6547 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6548 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6549 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6550 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6551
6552       </div>
6553       <div class="tags">
6554
6555
6556         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6557
6558
6559       </div>
6560     </div>
6561     <div class="padding"></div>
6562
6563     <div class="entry">
6564       <div class="title">
6565         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6566       </div>
6567       <div class="date">
6568          9th November 2010
6569       </div>
6570       <div class="body">
6571         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6572
6573 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6574 3D linked in from
6575 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6576 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6577
6578       </div>
6579       <div class="tags">
6580
6581
6582         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6583
6584
6585       </div>
6586     </div>
6587     <div class="padding"></div>
6588
6589     <div class="entry">
6590       <div class="title">
6591         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6592       </div>
6593       <div class="date">
6594         24th October 2010
6595       </div>
6596       <div class="body">
6597         <p>Some updates.</p>
6598
6599 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6600 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6601 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6602 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6603 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6604 :)</p>
6605
6606 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6607 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6608 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6609 It is called
6610 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6611 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6612 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6613 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6614 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6615 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6616
6617 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6618 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6619 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6620 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6621 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6622 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6623 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6624 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6625 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6626 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6627
6628       </div>
6629       <div class="tags">
6630
6631
6632         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
6633
6634
6635       </div>
6636     </div>
6637     <div class="padding"></div>
6638
6639     <div class="entry">
6640       <div class="title">
6641         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
6642       </div>
6643       <div class="date">
6644          4th September 2010
6645       </div>
6646       <div class="body">
6647         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6648 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6649 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6650 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6651 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6652 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6653 installed.</p>
6654
6655 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6656 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6657 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6658 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6659 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6660 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6661 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6662 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6663 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6664
6665 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6666 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6667 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6668 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6669 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6670 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6671 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6672 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6673 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6674 pages they want to visit.</p>
6675
6676 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6677 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6678 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6679 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6680 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6681 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6682 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6683 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6684 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6685 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6686 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6687
6688       </div>
6689       <div class="tags">
6690
6691
6692         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
6693
6694
6695       </div>
6696     </div>
6697     <div class="padding"></div>
6698
6699     <div class="entry">
6700       <div class="title">
6701         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
6702       </div>
6703       <div class="date">
6704         27th July 2010
6705       </div>
6706       <div class="body">
6707         <p>I discovered this while doing
6708 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
6709 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
6710 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
6711 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
6712 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
6713
6714 <p>An example is from todays
6715 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
6716 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
6717 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
6718 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
6719 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
6720 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
6721 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
6722
6723 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
6724
6725 <blockquote><pre>
6726 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
6727  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
6728   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
6729 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
6730  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
6731 </pre></blockquote>
6732
6733 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
6734 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
6735 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
6736 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
6737 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
6738 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
6739 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
6740 of dependency loops.</p>
6741
6742 <p>Thanks to
6743 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
6744 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
6745 dependencies
6746 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
6747 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
6748
6749 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
6750 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
6751 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
6752 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
6753 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
6754 it.</p>
6755
6756       </div>
6757       <div class="tags">
6758
6759
6760         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6761
6762
6763       </div>
6764     </div>
6765     <div class="padding"></div>
6766
6767     <div class="entry">
6768       <div class="title">
6769         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
6770       </div>
6771       <div class="date">
6772         17th July 2010
6773       </div>
6774       <div class="body">
6775         <p>This is a
6776 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
6777 on my
6778 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">previous
6779 work</a> on
6780 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
6781 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
6782
6783 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
6784 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
6785 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
6786 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
6787
6788 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
6789 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
6790 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
6791
6792 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
6793
6794 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
6795 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
6796 the web.
6797
6798 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
6799 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
6800 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
6801 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
6802 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
6803 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
6804
6805 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
6806 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
6807 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
6808 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
6809 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
6810 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
6811 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
6812 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
6813 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
6814 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
6815 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
6816 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
6817 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
6818 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
6819 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
6820 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
6821
6822 <blockquote><pre>
6823 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6824   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6825   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6826   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6827   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6828   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6829   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6830
6831 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6832   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6833   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
6834   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
6835   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
6836   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
6837 </pre></blockquote>
6838
6839 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
6840 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
6841 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
6842 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6843 also exist.</p>
6844
6845 <blockquote><pre>
6846 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6847 objectclass: top
6848 objectclass: dnsdomain
6849 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6850 dc: tjener
6851 arecord: 10.0.2.2
6852 associateddomain: tjener.intern
6853
6854 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6855 objectclass: top
6856 objectclass: dnsdomain2
6857 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6858 dc: 2
6859 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
6860 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
6861 </pre></blockquote>
6862
6863 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
6864 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
6865 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
6866 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
6867 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
6868 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
6869 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
6870 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
6871 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
6872 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
6873 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
6874 instead.</p>
6875
6876 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
6877 like this:</p>
6878
6879 <blockquote><pre>
6880 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6881   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6882   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6883   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6884   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6885   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6886
6887 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6888   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
6889 </pre></blockquote>
6890
6891 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
6892 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
6893 reverse lookups.</p>
6894
6895 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
6896 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
6897 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
6898 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
6899
6900 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
6901 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
6902 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
6903
6904 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
6905 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
6906 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
6907 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
6908 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
6909
6910 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
6911 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
6912 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
6913 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
6914 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
6915
6916 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
6917 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
6918 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
6919 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
6920 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
6921 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
6922
6923 <blockquote><pre>
6924 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
6925     SUP top
6926     AUXILIARY
6927     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
6928           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
6929           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
6930           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
6931           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
6932     ))
6933 </pre></blockquote>
6934
6935 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
6936 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
6937 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
6938 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
6939 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
6940 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
6941
6942 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
6943
6944 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
6945 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
6946 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
6947 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
6948 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
6949
6950 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
6951 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
6952 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
6953 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
6954
6955 <blockquote><pre>
6956 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
6957 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
6958 </pre></blockquote>
6959
6960 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
6961 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
6962 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
6963 search result is this entry:</p>
6964
6965 <blockquote><pre>
6966 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6967 cn: dhcp
6968 objectClass: top
6969 objectClass: dhcpServer
6970 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6971 </pre></blockquote>
6972
6973 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
6974 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
6975 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
6976 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
6977 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
6978 The search result is this entry:</p>
6979
6980 <blockquote><pre>
6981 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6982 cn: DHCP Config
6983 objectClass: top
6984 objectClass: dhcpService
6985 objectClass: dhcpOptions
6986 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6987 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
6988 dhcpStatements: authoritative
6989 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
6990 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
6991 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
6992 </pre></blockquote>
6993
6994 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
6995 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
6996 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
6997 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
6998 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
6999 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
7000 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
7001 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
7002 related computer objects.</p>
7003
7004 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
7005 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
7006 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
7007 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
7008 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
7009 like:</p>
7010
7011 <blockquote><pre>
7012 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7013 cn: hostname
7014 objectClass: top
7015 objectClass: dhcpHost
7016 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7017 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
7018 </pre></blockquote>
7019
7020 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
7021 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
7022 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
7023 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
7024 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
7025 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
7026 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
7027 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
7028 structural object class.
7029
7030 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
7031
7032 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
7033 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
7034 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
7035 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
7036 in the configuration.</p>
7037
7038 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
7039 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
7040 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
7041 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
7042 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
7043 structure.</p>
7044
7045 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
7046 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
7047
7048 <blockquote><pre>
7049 ou=services
7050   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
7051     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
7052     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7053       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7054         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7055     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7056       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7057         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7058     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
7059       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
7060 </pre></blockquote>
7061
7062 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
7063 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
7064 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
7065 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
7066
7067 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
7068 like this:</p>
7069
7070 <blockquote><pre>
7071 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7072 dc: hostname
7073 objectClass: top
7074 objectClass: dhcpHost
7075 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7076 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
7077 associateddomain: hostname.intern
7078 arecord: 10.11.12.13
7079 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7080 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
7081 </pre></blockquote>
7082
7083 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
7084 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
7085 auxiliary object class.</p>
7086
7087       </div>
7088       <div class="tags">
7089
7090
7091         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7092
7093
7094       </div>
7095     </div>
7096     <div class="padding"></div>
7097
7098     <div class="entry">
7099       <div class="title">
7100         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
7101       </div>
7102       <div class="date">
7103         14th July 2010
7104       </div>
7105       <div class="body">
7106         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
7107 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
7108 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
7109 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
7110 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
7111
7112 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
7113 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
7114
7115 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
7116 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
7117 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
7118 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
7119 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
7120 to a slave DNS server.</p>
7121
7122 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
7123 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
7124 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
7125 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
7126 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
7127 seem to work.</p>
7128
7129 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
7130 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
7131 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
7132 this:</p>
7133
7134 <blockquote><pre>
7135   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7136   cn: hostname
7137   objectClass: dhcphost
7138   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7139   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
7140   associateddomain: hostname.intern
7141   arecord: 10.11.12.13
7142   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7143   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
7144   ldapconfigsound: Y
7145 </pre></blockquote>
7146
7147 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
7148 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
7149 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
7150 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
7151
7152 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
7153 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
7154 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
7155 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
7156 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
7157 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
7158 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
7159 might be a good place to put it.</p>
7160
7161 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7162 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7163
7164       </div>
7165       <div class="tags">
7166
7167
7168         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7169
7170
7171       </div>
7172     </div>
7173     <div class="padding"></div>
7174
7175     <div class="entry">
7176       <div class="title">
7177         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
7178       </div>
7179       <div class="date">
7180         11th July 2010
7181       </div>
7182       <div class="body">
7183         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
7184 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
7185 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
7186 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
7187
7188 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
7189 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
7190 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
7191 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
7192 LTSP clients.</p>
7193
7194 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
7195 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
7196 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
7197
7198 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
7199 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
7200 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
7201
7202 <blockquote><pre>
7203 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
7204 #
7205 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
7206 #
7207 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
7208 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
7209 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
7210 #
7211 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
7212 # existence of attribute names.
7213 #
7214 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
7215 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
7216 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
7217 #
7218 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
7219 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
7220 #
7221 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
7222 #     SUP top
7223 #     AUXILIARY
7224 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
7225
7226 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
7227 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
7228     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
7229     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
7230         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
7231         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
7232             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
7233             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
7234             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
7235             # bass value on to clients
7236             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
7237         done
7238     done
7239 fi
7240 </pre></blockquote>
7241
7242 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
7243 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
7244 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
7245 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
7246 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
7247
7248 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7249 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7250
7251 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
7252 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
7253 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
7254 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
7255 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
7256 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
7257
7258       </div>
7259       <div class="tags">
7260
7261
7262         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7263
7264
7265       </div>
7266     </div>
7267     <div class="padding"></div>
7268
7269     <div class="entry">
7270       <div class="title">
7271         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7272       </div>
7273       <div class="date">
7274          9th July 2010
7275       </div>
7276       <div class="body">
7277         <p>Since
7278 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
7279 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
7280 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
7281 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
7282 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
7283 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
7284 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
7285 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
7286 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
7287 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
7288 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
7289 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
7290 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
7291
7292       </div>
7293       <div class="tags">
7294
7295
7296         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7297
7298
7299       </div>
7300     </div>
7301     <div class="padding"></div>
7302
7303     <div class="entry">
7304       <div class="title">
7305         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</a>
7306       </div>
7307       <div class="date">
7308          3rd July 2010
7309       </div>
7310       <div class="body">
7311         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
7312 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
7313 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
7314 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
7315 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
7316 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
7317 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
7318 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
7319
7320 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
7321 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
7322 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
7323 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
7324 publish the difference.</p>
7325
7326 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7327
7328 <blockquote><p>
7329   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7330   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
7331   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
7332   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7333   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
7334   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7335   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
7336   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
7337 </p></blockquote>
7338
7339 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7340
7341 <blockquote><p>
7342   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
7343   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
7344   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
7345   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
7346   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
7347   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
7348   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7349   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7350   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7351   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7352   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
7353   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
7354   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
7355   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
7356   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
7357   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7358   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
7359   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
7360   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
7361   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
7362 </p></blockquote>
7363
7364 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7365
7366 <blockquote><p>
7367   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
7368   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
7369   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7370   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7371   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
7372   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
7373   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
7374   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7375   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7376   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7377   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7378   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
7379   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
7380   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
7381   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
7382   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
7383   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
7384   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
7385   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
7386   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
7387   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
7388 </p></blockquote>
7389
7390 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7391
7392 <blockquote><p>
7393   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
7394   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
7395   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
7396 </p></blockquote>
7397
7398 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
7399 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
7400 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
7401 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
7402 the difference somewhat.
7403
7404       </div>
7405       <div class="tags">
7406
7407
7408         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7409
7410
7411       </div>
7412     </div>
7413     <div class="padding"></div>
7414
7415     <div class="entry">
7416       <div class="title">
7417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7418       </div>
7419       <div class="date">
7420         28th June 2010
7421       </div>
7422       <div class="body">
7423         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
7424 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
7425 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
7426 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
7427 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
7428 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
7429 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
7430 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
7431 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
7432 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
7433
7434 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
7435 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
7436 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
7437 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
7438 released.</p>
7439
7440 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
7441 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
7442 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
7443 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
7444
7445 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
7446 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7447
7448 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
7449 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
7450 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
7451 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
7452 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
7453
7454       </div>
7455       <div class="tags">
7456
7457
7458         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7459
7460
7461       </div>
7462     </div>
7463     <div class="padding"></div>
7464
7465     <div class="entry">
7466       <div class="title">
7467         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</a>
7468       </div>
7469       <div class="date">
7470         24th June 2010
7471       </div>
7472       <div class="body">
7473         <p>A while back, I
7474 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
7475 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
7476 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
7477 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
7478
7479 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
7480 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
7481 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
7482 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
7483
7484 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
7485 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
7486 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
7487 Debian Edu.</p>
7488
7489 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
7490 the
7491 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
7492 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
7493 available today from IETF.</p>
7494
7495 <pre>
7496 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
7497 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
7498 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
7499  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
7500         NAME 'dhcpHost'
7501         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
7502 -       SUP top
7503 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
7504         MUST cn
7505         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
7506         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
7507 </pre>
7508
7509 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
7510 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
7511 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
7512
7513 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7514 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7515
7516       </div>
7517       <div class="tags">
7518
7519
7520         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7521
7522
7523       </div>
7524     </div>
7525     <div class="padding"></div>
7526
7527     <div class="entry">
7528       <div class="title">
7529         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
7530       </div>
7531       <div class="date">
7532         16th June 2010
7533       </div>
7534       <div class="body">
7535         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
7536 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
7537 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
7538 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
7539 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
7540 this:
7541
7542 <blockquote><pre>
7543 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7544 tasksel --new-install
7545 </pre></blockquote>
7546
7547 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
7548 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
7549 any output what so ever.
7550
7551 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
7552 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
7553 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
7554 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
7555 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
7556 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
7557 code like this:
7558
7559 <blockquote><pre>
7560 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7561 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
7562 $cmd
7563 </pre></blockquote>
7564
7565 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
7566 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
7567 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
7568 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
7569 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
7570 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
7571 installation.</p>
7572
7573 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
7574 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
7575 like this.</p>
7576
7577       </div>
7578       <div class="tags">
7579
7580
7581         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
7582
7583
7584       </div>
7585     </div>
7586     <div class="padding"></div>
7587
7588     <div class="entry">
7589       <div class="title">
7590         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
7591       </div>
7592       <div class="date">
7593         13th June 2010
7594       </div>
7595       <div class="body">
7596         <p>My
7597 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
7598 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
7599 finally made the upgrade logs available from
7600 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
7601 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
7602 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
7603 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
7604
7605 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
7606 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
7607 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
7608 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
7609 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
7610 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
7611 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
7612 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
7613
7614 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
7615 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
7616 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
7617 too surprising.</p>
7618
7619 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
7620 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
7621 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
7622 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
7623 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
7624 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
7625 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
7626 continue.</p>
7627
7628 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
7629 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
7630   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
7631   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
7632   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
7633   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
7634   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
7635   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7636   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7637   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7638   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7639   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7640   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7641   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7642   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7643   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7644   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7645   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7646   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7647   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7648   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7649   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7650   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7651   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7652   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7653   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7654   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7655   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7656   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
7657   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
7658
7659 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
7660
7661 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
7662   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
7663   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
7664   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
7665   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7666   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
7667   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
7668   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
7669   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
7670   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
7671   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7672   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
7673   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7674   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
7675   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
7676   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
7677   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
7678   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
7679   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
7680   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
7681   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
7682   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
7683   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
7684   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
7685   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7686   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
7687   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
7688   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
7689   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
7690   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7691   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7692   zip</p>
7693
7694 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
7695
7696 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
7697   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
7698   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
7699   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
7700   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
7701   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
7702   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7703   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7704   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7705   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7706   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7707   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7708   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7709   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7710   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7711   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7712   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7713   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7714   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7715   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7716   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7717   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7718   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7719   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7720   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7721   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7722   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7723   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
7724
7725 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
7726 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
7727   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7728   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
7729   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
7730   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7731   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
7732   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
7733   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
7734   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
7735   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
7736   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
7737   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
7738   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
7739   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
7740   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
7741   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
7742   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7743   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7744   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7745   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
7746   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7747   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
7748   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
7749   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7750   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7751   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
7752   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
7753   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
7754   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
7755   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
7756   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
7757   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
7758   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
7759   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
7760   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7761   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7762   xulrunner-1.9</p>
7763
7764
7765       </div>
7766       <div class="tags">
7767
7768
7769         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7770
7771
7772       </div>
7773     </div>
7774     <div class="padding"></div>
7775
7776     <div class="entry">
7777       <div class="title">
7778         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
7779       </div>
7780       <div class="date">
7781         11th June 2010
7782       </div>
7783       <div class="body">
7784         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
7785 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
7786 have been discovered and reported in the process
7787 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
7788 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
7789 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
7790 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
7791 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
7792
7793 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
7794 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
7795 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
7796 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
7797 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
7798 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
7799
7800 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
7801 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
7802 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7803 is created.  The bug report
7804 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
7805 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
7806 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
7807 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
7808 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
7809 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
7810 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
7811 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
7812 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
7813 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
7814 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
7815 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
7816 Debian Squeeze.</p>
7817
7818 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
7819 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
7820 trick:</p>
7821
7822 <blockquote><pre>
7823 #!/bin/sh
7824 set -ex
7825
7826 if [ "$1" ] ; then
7827     desktop=$1
7828 else
7829     desktop=gnome
7830 fi
7831
7832 from=lenny
7833 to=squeeze
7834
7835 exec &lt; /dev/null
7836 unset LANG
7837 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
7838 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
7839 fuser -mv .
7840 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
7841 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7842 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
7843 #!/bin/sh
7844 exit 101
7845 EOF
7846 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
7847 exit_cleanup() {
7848     umount $tmpdir/proc
7849 }
7850 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
7851 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
7852 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
7853
7854 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
7855
7856 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
7857 # to return the correct answers.
7858 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
7859     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
7860
7861 # Include the desktop and laptop task
7862 for test in desktop laptop ; do
7863     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
7864 #!/bin/sh
7865 exit 2
7866 EOF
7867     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
7868 done
7869
7870 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7871 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
7872 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
7873 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
7874
7875 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
7876 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7877 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7878 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
7879 fuser -mv
7880 </pre></blockquote>
7881
7882 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
7883 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
7884 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
7885 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
7886 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
7887 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
7888
7889 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
7890 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
7891 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
7892 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
7893 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
7894 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
7895 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
7896
7897 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
7898 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
7899 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
7900 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
7901 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
7902 packages.</p>
7903
7904       </div>
7905       <div class="tags">
7906
7907
7908         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7909
7910
7911       </div>
7912     </div>
7913     <div class="padding"></div>
7914
7915     <div class="entry">
7916       <div class="title">
7917         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a>
7918       </div>
7919       <div class="date">
7920          6th June 2010
7921       </div>
7922       <div class="body">
7923         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
7924 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
7925 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
7926 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
7927 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
7928 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
7929 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
7930
7931 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
7932 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
7933 COLUMNS):</p>
7934
7935 <blockquote><pre>
7936 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
7937 previous=N
7938 PREVLEVEL=
7939 RUNLEVEL=
7940 runlevel=S
7941 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
7942 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
7943 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
7944 </pre></blockquote>
7945
7946 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
7947 script.</p>
7948
7949 <blockquote><pre>
7950 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
7951 previous=N
7952 PREVLEVEL=N
7953 RUNLEVEL=S
7954 runlevel=S
7955 </pre></blockquote>
7956
7957 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
7958 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
7959 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
7960
7961 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
7962 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
7963 choice.</p>
7964
7965       </div>
7966       <div class="tags">
7967
7968
7969         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7970
7971
7972       </div>
7973     </div>
7974     <div class="padding"></div>
7975
7976     <div class="entry">
7977       <div class="title">
7978         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
7979       </div>
7980       <div class="date">
7981          6th June 2010
7982       </div>
7983       <div class="body">
7984         <p>Via the
7985 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
7986 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
7987 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
7988 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
7989 following the standards wars of today.</p>
7990
7991       </div>
7992       <div class="tags">
7993
7994
7995         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
7996
7997
7998       </div>
7999     </div>
8000     <div class="padding"></div>
8001
8002     <div class="entry">
8003       <div class="title">
8004         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a>
8005       </div>
8006       <div class="date">
8007          3rd June 2010
8008       </div>
8009       <div class="body">
8010         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
8011 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
8012 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
8013 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
8014 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
8015
8016 <blockquote><pre>
8017 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
8018   vendor                    count
8019   Dell Computer Corporation     1
8020     PowerEdge 1750              1
8021   IBM                           1
8022     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
8023   Intel                         2
8024   [no-dmi-info]                 3
8025 maintainer:~#
8026 </pre></blockquote>
8027
8028 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
8029 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
8030 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
8031 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
8032 option to list the individual machines.</p>
8033
8034 <p>A larger list is
8035 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
8036 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
8037 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
8038 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
8039 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
8040 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
8041 collector.</p>
8042
8043       </div>
8044       <div class="tags">
8045
8046
8047         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
8048
8049
8050       </div>
8051     </div>
8052     <div class="padding"></div>
8053
8054     <div class="entry">
8055       <div class="title">
8056         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</a>
8057       </div>
8058       <div class="date">
8059          1st June 2010
8060       </div>
8061       <div class="body">
8062         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
8063 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
8064 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
8065 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
8066 wait.</p>
8067
8068 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
8069 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
8070 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
8071 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
8072 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
8073 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
8074
8075 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
8076 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
8077 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
8078 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
8079 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
8080 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
8081 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
8082 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
8083
8084 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
8085
8086       </div>
8087       <div class="tags">
8088
8089
8090         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8091
8092
8093       </div>
8094     </div>
8095     <div class="padding"></div>
8096
8097     <div class="entry">
8098       <div class="title">
8099         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
8100       </div>
8101       <div class="date">
8102         27th May 2010
8103       </div>
8104       <div class="body">
8105         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
8106 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
8107 issues are known and should be solved:
8108
8109 <p><ul>
8110
8111 <li>The wicd package seen to
8112 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
8113 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
8114 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
8115 seem to be on the case.</li>
8116
8117 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
8118 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
8119 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
8120 maintainer is on the case.</li>
8121
8122 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
8123 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
8124 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
8125 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
8126 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
8127 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
8128 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
8129 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
8130
8131 </ul></p>
8132
8133 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
8134 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
8135 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
8136 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
8137
8138 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8139 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8140 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8141 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8142
8143 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
8144
8145       </div>
8146       <div class="tags">
8147
8148
8149         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8150
8151
8152       </div>
8153     </div>
8154     <div class="padding"></div>
8155
8156     <div class="entry">
8157       <div class="title">
8158         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
8159       </div>
8160       <div class="date">
8161         22nd May 2010
8162       </div>
8163       <div class="body">
8164         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
8165 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
8166 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
8167 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
8168
8169 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
8170 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
8171 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
8172 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
8173 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
8174 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
8175 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
8176 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
8177 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
8178 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
8179 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
8180 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
8181 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
8182 going to work.</p>
8183
8184 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
8185 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
8186 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
8187 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
8188 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
8189 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
8190 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
8191 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
8192 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
8193 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
8194 Edu.</p>
8195
8196 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
8197 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
8198 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
8199 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
8200 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
8201 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
8202
8203 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
8204 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
8205
8206       </div>
8207       <div class="tags">
8208
8209
8210         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8211
8212
8213       </div>
8214     </div>
8215     <div class="padding"></div>
8216
8217     <div class="entry">
8218       <div class="title">
8219         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html">Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</a>
8220       </div>
8221       <div class="date">
8222         14th May 2010
8223       </div>
8224       <div class="body">
8225         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
8226 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
8227 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
8228 expected, if I am to believe the
8229 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8230 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
8231 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
8232 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
8233 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
8234 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
8235 version.</p>
8236
8237 More information about
8238 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8239 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
8240 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
8241 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8242
8243 <blockquote><pre>
8244 CONCURRENCY=none
8245 </pre></blockquote>
8246
8247 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8248 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8249 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8250 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8251
8252       </div>
8253       <div class="tags">
8254
8255
8256         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8257
8258
8259       </div>
8260     </div>
8261     <div class="padding"></div>
8262
8263     <div class="entry">
8264       <div class="title">
8265         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
8266       </div>
8267       <div class="date">
8268         14th May 2010
8269       </div>
8270       <div class="body">
8271         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
8272 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
8273 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
8274 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
8275 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
8276 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
8277 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
8278 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
8279
8280 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
8281 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
8282 this on the collector host:</p>
8283
8284 <blockquote><pre>
8285 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
8286 </pre></blockquote>
8287
8288 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
8289 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
8290
8291 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
8292 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
8293 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
8294 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
8295 written yet.</p>
8296
8297       </div>
8298       <div class="tags">
8299
8300
8301         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
8302
8303
8304       </div>
8305     </div>
8306     <div class="padding"></div>
8307
8308     <div class="entry">
8309       <div class="title">
8310         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
8311       </div>
8312       <div class="date">
8313         13th May 2010
8314       </div>
8315       <div class="body">
8316         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
8317 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
8318 has been
8319 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
8320
8321 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
8322 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
8323 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
8324 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
8325 based boot system.  Tollef is
8326 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
8327 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
8328 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
8329 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
8330 at the moment do not.</p>
8331
8332 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
8333 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
8334 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
8335 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
8336 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
8337 way forward.</p>
8338
8339 <p>In the mean time, based on the
8340 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8341 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
8342 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
8343 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
8344 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
8345 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
8346 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
8347 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
8348
8349       </div>
8350       <div class="tags">
8351
8352
8353         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8354
8355
8356       </div>
8357     </div>
8358     <div class="padding"></div>
8359
8360     <div class="entry">
8361       <div class="title">
8362         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</a>
8363       </div>
8364       <div class="date">
8365          6th May 2010
8366       </div>
8367       <div class="body">
8368         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
8369 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
8370 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
8371 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
8372 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8373 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
8374 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8375
8376 <blockquote><pre>
8377 CONCURRENCY=makefile
8378 </pre></blockquote>
8379
8380 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
8381 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
8382 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
8383 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
8384 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
8385 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
8386 make this happen.</p>
8387
8388 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
8389 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
8390 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
8391 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
8392 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
8393
8394 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
8395 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
8396 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
8397 fix the remaining issues.</p>
8398
8399 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8400 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8401 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8402 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8403
8404       </div>
8405       <div class="tags">
8406
8407
8408         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8409
8410
8411       </div>
8412     </div>
8413     <div class="padding"></div>
8414
8415     <div class="entry">
8416       <div class="title">
8417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
8418       </div>
8419       <div class="date">
8420         27th July 2009
8421       </div>
8422       <div class="body">
8423         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
8424 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
8425 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
8426 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
8427 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
8428 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
8429 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
8430
8431 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
8432 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
8433 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
8434
8435       </div>
8436       <div class="tags">
8437
8438
8439         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8440
8441
8442       </div>
8443     </div>
8444     <div class="padding"></div>
8445
8446     <div class="entry">
8447       <div class="title">
8448         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
8449       </div>
8450       <div class="date">
8451         22nd July 2009
8452       </div>
8453       <div class="body">
8454         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
8455 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
8456 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
8457 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
8458 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
8459 the package up to date.</p>
8460
8461 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
8462 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
8463 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
8464 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
8465 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
8466 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
8467 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
8468 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
8469 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
8470 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
8471 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
8472 working on the future release.</p>
8473
8474 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
8475 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
8476
8477       </div>
8478       <div class="tags">
8479
8480
8481         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8482
8483
8484       </div>
8485     </div>
8486     <div class="padding"></div>
8487
8488     <div class="entry">
8489       <div class="title">
8490         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
8491       </div>
8492       <div class="date">
8493         24th June 2009
8494       </div>
8495       <div class="body">
8496         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
8497 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
8498 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
8499 funded
8500 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
8501 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
8502 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
8503 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
8504 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
8505 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
8506
8507 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
8508 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
8509 boot:</p>
8510
8511 <ul>
8512
8513 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
8514
8515 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
8516    clock is in UTC.</li>
8517
8518 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
8519    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8520    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
8521
8522 </ul>
8523
8524 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
8525 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
8526 Villegas</a>.
8527
8528 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
8529 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
8530 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
8531 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
8532 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
8533 using this.</p>
8534
8535 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
8536 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
8537 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
8538 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
8539 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
8540 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
8541 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
8542
8543       </div>
8544       <div class="tags">
8545
8546
8547         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8548
8549
8550       </div>
8551     </div>
8552     <div class="padding"></div>
8553
8554     <div class="entry">
8555       <div class="title">
8556         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
8557       </div>
8558       <div class="date">
8559         17th May 2009
8560       </div>
8561       <div class="body">
8562         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
8563 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
8564 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
8565 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
8566 dager siden kom
8567 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
8568 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
8569 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
8570 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
8571 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
8572
8573 <blockquote>
8574 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
8575 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
8576 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
8577 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
8578 </blockquote>
8579
8580 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
8581 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
8582 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
8583 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
8584 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
8585
8586 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
8587 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
8588 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
8589
8590       </div>
8591       <div class="tags">
8592
8593
8594         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
8595
8596
8597       </div>
8598     </div>
8599     <div class="padding"></div>
8600
8601     <div class="entry">
8602       <div class="title">
8603         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html">IDG mener linux i servermarkedet vil vokse med 21% i 2009</a>
8604       </div>
8605       <div class="date">
8606          7th May 2009
8607       </div>
8608       <div class="body">
8609         <p>Kom over
8610 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
8611 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
8612 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
8613 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
8614 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
8615 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
8616 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
8617
8618       </div>
8619       <div class="tags">
8620
8621
8622         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8623
8624
8625       </div>
8626     </div>
8627     <div class="padding"></div>
8628
8629     <div class="entry">
8630       <div class="title">
8631         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
8632       </div>
8633       <div class="date">
8634          2nd May 2009
8635       </div>
8636       <div class="body">
8637         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
8638 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
8639 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
8640 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
8641 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
8642 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
8643 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
8644 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
8645 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
8646 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
8647 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
8648 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
8649 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
8650 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
8651 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
8652 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
8653 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
8654 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
8655 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
8656 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
8657
8658 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
8659 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
8660 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
8661 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
8662 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
8663 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
8664 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
8665 betydelige.</p>
8666
8667       </div>
8668       <div class="tags">
8669
8670
8671         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
8672
8673
8674       </div>
8675     </div>
8676     <div class="padding"></div>
8677
8678     <div class="entry">
8679       <div class="title">
8680         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html">Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</a>
8681       </div>
8682       <div class="date">
8683          2nd May 2009
8684       </div>
8685       <div class="body">
8686         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
8687 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
8688 do not yet know them.</p>
8689
8690 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
8691 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
8692 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
8693 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
8694 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
8695 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
8696 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
8697 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
8698 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
8699 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
8700 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
8701
8702 <p>The second one is
8703 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
8704 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
8705 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
8706 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
8707 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
8708 and the company behind it is running
8709 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
8710 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
8711 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
8712 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
8713 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
8714 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
8715 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
8716 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
8717
8718 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
8719 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
8720 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
8721 surrounded by today.</p>
8722
8723       </div>
8724       <div class="tags">
8725
8726
8727         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8728
8729
8730       </div>
8731     </div>
8732     <div class="padding"></div>
8733
8734     <div class="entry">
8735       <div class="title">
8736         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
8737       </div>
8738       <div class="date">
8739         28th April 2009
8740       </div>
8741       <div class="body">
8742         <p>Julien Blache
8743 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
8744 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
8745 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
8746 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
8747 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
8748 properties.</p>
8749
8750       </div>
8751       <div class="tags">
8752
8753
8754         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8755
8756
8757       </div>
8758     </div>
8759     <div class="padding"></div>
8760
8761     <div class="entry">
8762       <div class="title">
8763         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</a>
8764       </div>
8765       <div class="date">
8766         30th March 2009
8767       </div>
8768       <div class="body">
8769         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
8770 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
8771 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
8772 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
8773 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
8774 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
8775 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
8776 application.</p>
8777
8778 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
8779 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
8780 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
8781 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
8782 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
8783 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
8784 blocked from doing so.</p>
8785
8786 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
8787 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
8788 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
8789 requirements change.</p>
8790
8791 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
8792 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
8793 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
8794
8795       </div>
8796       <div class="tags">
8797
8798
8799         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
8800
8801
8802       </div>
8803     </div>
8804     <div class="padding"></div>
8805
8806     <div class="entry">
8807       <div class="title">
8808         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
8809       </div>
8810       <div class="date">
8811         29th March 2009
8812       </div>
8813       <div class="body">
8814         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
8815 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
8816 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
8817 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
8818 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
8819 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
8820 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
8821 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
8822 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
8823 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
8824 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
8825 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
8826 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
8827 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
8828 now. :)</p>
8829
8830       </div>
8831       <div class="tags">
8832
8833
8834         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8835
8836
8837       </div>
8838     </div>
8839     <div class="padding"></div>
8840
8841     <div class="entry">
8842       <div class="title">
8843         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
8844       </div>
8845       <div class="date">
8846         29th March 2009
8847       </div>
8848       <div class="body">
8849         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
8850 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
8851 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
8852 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
8853 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
8854 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
8855
8856 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
8857 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
8858 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
8859 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
8860 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
8861 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
8862 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
8863 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
8864 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
8865 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
8866 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
8867 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
8868 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
8869
8870 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
8871 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
8872 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
8873 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
8874
8875 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
8876 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
8877
8878 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
8879 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
8880 new IETF work group?</p>
8881
8882       </div>
8883       <div class="tags">
8884
8885
8886         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8887
8888
8889       </div>
8890     </div>
8891     <div class="padding"></div>
8892
8893     <div class="entry">
8894       <div class="title">
8895         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
8896       </div>
8897       <div class="date">
8898         15th February 2009
8899       </div>
8900       <div class="body">
8901         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
8902 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
8903 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
8904 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
8905 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
8906 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
8907 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
8908 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
8909 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
8910 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
8911 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
8912 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
8913
8914       </div>
8915       <div class="tags">
8916
8917
8918         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
8919
8920
8921       </div>
8922     </div>
8923     <div class="padding"></div>
8924
8925     <div class="entry">
8926       <div class="title">
8927         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html">Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</a>
8928       </div>
8929       <div class="date">
8930          7th December 2008
8931       </div>
8932       <div class="body">
8933         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
8934 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
8935 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
8936 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
8937 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
8938 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
8939 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
8940 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
8941
8942 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
8943 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
8944 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
8945 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
8946 of these cards.</p>
8947
8948       </div>
8949       <div class="tags">
8950
8951
8952         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
8953
8954
8955       </div>
8956     </div>
8957     <div class="padding"></div>
8958
8959     <div class="entry">
8960       <div class="title">
8961         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</a>
8962       </div>
8963       <div class="date">
8964         25th November 2008
8965       </div>
8966       <div class="body">
8967         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
8968 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
8969 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
8970 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
8971 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
8972 notes are available on
8973 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
8974 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
8975 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
8976 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
8977 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
8978 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
8979 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
8980 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
8981 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
8982
8983 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
8984 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
8985
8986       </div>
8987       <div class="tags">
8988
8989
8990         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
8991
8992
8993       </div>
8994     </div>
8995     <div class="padding"></div>
8996
8997     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="debian.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
8998     <div id="sidebar">
8999
9000
9001
9002 <h2>Archive</h2>
9003 <ul>
9004
9005 <li>2014
9006 <ul>
9007
9008 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9009
9010 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
9011
9012 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
9013
9014 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9015
9016 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
9017
9018 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9019
9020 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
9021
9022 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9023
9024 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9025
9026 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
9027
9028 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9029
9030 </ul></li>
9031
9032 <li>2013
9033 <ul>
9034
9035 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
9036
9037 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
9038
9039 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
9040
9041 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
9042
9043 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9044
9045 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
9046
9047 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9048
9049 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9050
9051 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9052
9053 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
9054
9055 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
9056
9057 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9058
9059 </ul></li>
9060
9061 <li>2012
9062 <ul>
9063
9064 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9065
9066 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
9067
9068 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
9069
9070 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
9071
9072 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
9073
9074 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
9075
9076 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
9077
9078 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9079
9080 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
9081
9082 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
9083
9084 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
9085
9086 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9087
9088 </ul></li>
9089
9090 <li>2011
9091 <ul>
9092
9093 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
9094
9095 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9096
9097 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
9098
9099 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9100
9101 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9102
9103 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9104
9105 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9106
9107 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9108
9109 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
9110
9111 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9112
9113 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9114
9115 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
9116
9117 </ul></li>
9118
9119 <li>2010
9120 <ul>
9121
9122 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9123
9124 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
9125
9126 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
9127
9128 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
9129
9130 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9131
9132 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
9133
9134 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
9135
9136 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
9137
9138 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
9139
9140 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9141
9142 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
9143
9144 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
9145
9146 </ul></li>
9147
9148 <li>2009
9149 <ul>
9150
9151 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
9152
9153 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
9154
9155 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
9156
9157 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
9158
9159 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9160
9161 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
9162
9163 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
9164
9165 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9166
9167 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
9168
9169 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9170
9171 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9172
9173 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9174
9175 </ul></li>
9176
9177 <li>2008
9178 <ul>
9179
9180 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
9181
9182 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9183
9184 </ul></li>
9185
9186 </ul>
9187
9188
9189
9190 <h2>Tags</h2>
9191 <ul>
9192
9193  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
9194
9195  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
9196
9197  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
9198
9199  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
9200
9201  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
9202
9203  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
9204
9205  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
9206
9207  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
9208
9209  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (109)</a></li>
9210
9211  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (151)</a></li>
9212
9213  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
9214
9215  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
9216
9217  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (12)</a></li>
9218
9219  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
9220
9221  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (263)</a></li>
9222
9223  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
9224
9225  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
9226
9227  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (13)</a></li>
9228
9229  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
9230
9231  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
9232
9233  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
9234
9235  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
9236
9237  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
9238
9239  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
9240
9241  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
9242
9243  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
9244
9245  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
9246
9247  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
9248
9249  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (32)</a></li>
9250
9251  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (249)</a></li>
9252
9253  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (163)</a></li>
9254
9255  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
9256
9257  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
9258
9259  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (49)</a></li>
9260
9261  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (76)</a></li>
9262
9263  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
9264
9265  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
9266
9267  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
9268
9269  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
9270
9271  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
9272
9273  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
9274
9275  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
9276
9277  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
9278
9279  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
9280
9281  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
9282
9283  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
9284
9285  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (46)</a></li>
9286
9287  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
9288
9289  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
9290
9291  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (27)</a></li>
9292
9293  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
9294
9295  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
9296
9297  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (45)</a></li>
9298
9299  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
9300
9301  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (34)</a></li>
9302
9303 </ul>
9304
9305
9306     </div>
9307     <p style="text-align: right">
9308  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
9309 </p>
9310
9311   </body>
9312 </html>